HTC invests more than £50m in gaming and video

HTC has acquired new gaming and video-on-demand content delivery expertise by buying into two companies, OnLive and Saffron Digital.

On Monday, the smartphone manufacturer said in a statement that it was making a "strategic investment" in London-based Saffron Digital, which specialises in multimedia content delivery technology. The Wall Street Journal put the figure of that purchase at £30.2m. On Tuesday, HTC announced a $40m (£25m) investment into OnLive, which it described as a "pioneer of on-demand, instant-play video games".

"In a world of mobile Internet ubiquity, content is king but it's not all created equal. OnLive provides a connected cloud-based gaming experience unlike any other," HTC chief executive Peter Chou said in a statement on Tuesday. "HTC and OnLive share a similar goal for expanding connected cloud-based gaming by making it wireless and location-independent."

OnLive chief executive Steve Perlman added in the same statement that his company's cloud gaming technology would "turbo-charge HTC mobile devices with directly playable console-class video game performance".

Meanwhile, Saffron Digital chief executive Shashi Fernando said in Monday's statement that HTC's investment would increase Saffron's global expansion capabilities while giving the company "an opportunity to expand into new markets like Asia and new sectors like games and music delivery".

That statement also noted that "the company's headquarters will remain in London and Los Angeles while its management team will continue unchanged", but it remains unclear whether HTC's investment amounts to a takeover, as these words suggest.

HTC's move to gain more gaming expertise comes days ahead of the official launch by rival Android handset-maker Sony Ericsson of its Xperia Play handset, which is being touted as the 'PlayStation phone'. That launch will take place on Sunday, at the start of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.