Vivendi launching Zaoza mobile portal

Vivendi has announced a new entertainment portal called Zaoza, which spans mobile and PC. Mobile games will be a big part of it, with some innovative features wrapped around them.

In the US, Zaoza will cost users a monthly subscription fee of EUR 3 (£2.30), which will allow unlimited downloads of games, music, ringtones and videos.

Reports claim it'll launch in France next month, Germany in the summer and then the UK by the end of 2008, with Vivendi aiming to sign up 500,000 people by that point.

Games from the company's Vivendi Games Mobile division will presumably play a high-profile role, but apparently THQ and Eidos have also signed on – so it'll offer games from other publishers, too.

Here's the interesting aspect: you'll be able to share your downloads with up to five friends, apparently. We're not entirely sure how this will work on mobile, but it could spur the sort of word-of-mouth recommendations that mobile game publishers crave.

We'll find out in due course. For now, it seems all the elements are in place for Zaoza to be more successful than Vivendi's previous attempt at a PC/mobile entertainment portal: Vizzavi.