Samsung and cloud gaming company Hatch are launching a new 5G gaming app for Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G phones.
The Hatch gaming app will offer S10 5G users access to more than a hundred streaming games, including Hitman GO, Monument Valley, and Arkanoid Rising. The two companies said the app has been designed to take advantage of the faster speeds and lower latency of 5G networks.
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Customers will be required to subscribe to a monthly Hatch Premium subscription service to access the games. Samsung said it’s including one month of Hatch Premium for free to consumers who purchase an S10 5G phone.
Hatch co-founder and chief commercial officer Vesa Jutila said the app will “dramatically grow the addressable market for our network of 160-plus game developer partners.”
Mobile gaming is emerging as one of the first monetizable use cases for 5G. Samsung’s Chris Jo, VP, GM, and head of products and operations at Samsung Electronics America’s content and service division, touted the fast speeds and low latency of 5G as factors that will “totally transform mobile gaming.”
In a separate announcement, Sprint said it will be the first carrier to offer Hatch cloud gaming to customers in the U.S.
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Samsung launched its Galaxy S10 5G phone in mid-May. The phone, which was the first out-of-the-box 5G-capable phone being offered in the U.S., is currently only available through Verizon. Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile plan to begin offering the S10 later this summer, after Verizon’s exclusivity period is over. AT&T has said it’ll begin offering the phone “this spring” although it hasn’t updated that timeline since April. T-Mobile is expected to begin offering the S10 5G in the first half of 2019, too; and Sprint has said it'll begin offering the phone this summer.