Orange has signed up with music retailer HMV to start an online games store, called HMV Mobile Games. The store would offer around 400 games downloads suitable for Java-enabled handsets. The online store was launched last week and according to Orange, this concept is unheard of amongst UK cellular operators making it unique and one of a kind.

Apart from the initial 400 games that would be available for download, it is planned to add more choices every week to ensure that customers keep coming back for more. To promote the service, HMV mobile games would make games available to users of all mobile internet networks, even though the service is offered by Orange.

The store would have games available for purchase for as little as £1 while costs for more popular titles would go up to £5. Though the popular titles not cheap, they include games like Fifa Manager 10 and Call of Duty MW2 among others, which have been tweaked to run on handsets. At the cheaper end of the spectrum are classic titles like Tetris and Pac Man, also available for download. The site would also offer game reviews, previews and demo versions, which a user can download and play before purchasing the full version.

The launch date for the service is 26 March and the store application can be forwarded to handsets via SMS, by texting “hmv” to 87010. Orange users can download mobile games directly and will have the cost of the game download added to their monthly bills while non-Orange users can pay using a pay-now billing system.