amBX

Philips today announced an amBX sponsorship programme with Dare to be Digital in association with Channel 4 ( www.daretobedigital.com), the UK’s premier computer game design competition for talented university students who love to play games and aspire to break into the games industry.

Organised and promoted by Abertay University in Dundee, Dare to be Digital challenges student teams over a ten-week period every summer to conceive and design a playable computer game. The finalists gather at Dare Protoplay, a public event dedicated to emerging artists and programmers, to showcase their work and to be judged by both the public and a panel of games industry experts. Three winning games will be nominated for the coveted ‘Ones to Watch’ Award at the British Academy Video Game Awards in October.

Philips has signed a wide-ranging and supportive sponsorship programme with Dare to be Digital, which will see amBX development kits made available to all 2008 entrants and technical support given to those students who include amBX features in their game. Furthermore, teams who choose to create amBX-enabled games and peripherals will have their efforts seen and tried out by thousands of attendees at Dare Protoplay, which will be held during the Edinburgh Interactive Festival at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre from 10th to 12th August 2008.

“amBX-enabling Dare to be Digital is part of our dedicated grass roots campaign to nurture and support young computer game development talent,” commented Jo Cooke, Chief Marketing Officer, Philips amBX. “The UK is a world leader in the game development industry and amBX will be supporting our future captains of industry every step of the way. We’re really looking forward to seeing the many different innovative amBX effects that our young game developers are going to create in their games.”

Shorthand for ‘ambient experiences’, amBX reinvents the gameplay experience by extending the traditional gaming world out of the screen and into the real world. amBX delivers full ‘surround senses’ by allowing developers to use light, colour, sound, rumble and even air flow through enabled devices, including the Philips amBX PC Gaming Peripherals range of LED colour-controlled lighting, rumble peripherals and variable speed desktop fans.

“The support from Philips amBX represents a fabulous opportunity for the Dare teams to deploy amBX in an innovative way. Giving the teams the chance to work with an industry standard technology to enhance the player’s experience is the type of opportunity that makes Dare to be Digital such a distinctive competition, ” commented Paul Durrant, Abertay’s project director for Dare to be Digital.

Philips is setting a global standard by licensing the amBX technology to game developers, publishers and peripherals manufacturers including Ubisoft, Codemasters, THQ, Introversion, Gearbox Software, Gas Powered Games, Zombie, Riot Games, Brain in a Jar, Invictus Games, Instinct Technology, Kuju, Revolution, Sumo Digital and Rivers Run Red.

Games which are amBX compatible include Broken Sword: The Angel of Death, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Clive Barker's Jericho, Darwinia, DEFCON, Far Cry 2, Overlord, QUAKE 4, Supreme Commander and Toca Race Driver 3.

Over 100 titles are also compatible with FXGenerator and amBX FXGen+, including The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Lost Planet, Crysis, Stranglehold and Need for Speed: ProStreet, and a full list, searchable by genre and publisher, can be found at can be found at www.ambx.com.

Media contacts:

Mark Ward, Luke Geoghegan or Dean Barrett at Bastion Ltd.,

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7421 7600 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7421 7601

email: mark@bastion.co.uk

Philips amBX

Hans Driessen

Tel.: +31 40 2746692

email: hans.driessen@philips.com

Kevin Coe, University of Abertay Dundee

Tel: +44 (0) 1382 452

Mobile: +44 (0) 7850 904 110

About Royal Philips Electronics

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is a global leader in healthcare, lighting and consumer lifestyle, delivering people-centric, innovative products, services and solutions through the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs approximately 123,800 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 27 billion in 2007, the company is a market leader in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring systems, energy efficient lighting solutions, as well as lifestyle solutions for personal wellbeing. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.

Dare to be Digital

Dare to be Digital in association with Channel 4 is the UK’s premier video games design competition. It supports the creation of video game prototypes by talented, young developers in order to showcase their talent and prepare them for working in industry and also to stimulate new IP creation.

Teams of 5 art and science students/recent graduates are filtered through a rigorous industry selection process to work together for ten weeks from June to August every year in a near to real world development environment set up in a university or possibly in a development studio. They are supported with a stipend, hardware, software, mentoring and training from industry professionals and also with studio space.

At the end of the 10 weeks they demonstrate their games to a public audience at a major showcase event Dare ProtoPlay and compete for cash prizes by pitching the prototype they have created to a high profile panel of judges from the video games industry. The 3 winning Dare teams also form the sole nominees for the BAFTA Ones To Watch Award.

The contest was launched in 1999 by the University of Abertay Dundee (aka Abertay University), and has been run every year since, latterly including student teams from throughout the UK and Ireland, as well as Indian and Chinese teams.

More details can be found on http://www.daretobedigital.com