Namco Bandai Slipping into Facebook Gaming

In a move to capture part of the social gaming market, Namco Bandai has confirmed that it has two titles in development for Facebook, which will be available from late August as beta versions.

This brings Namco Bandai's VP of sales, marketing and publishing Olivier Comte's statement earlier this year that, "So in the mind of the consumer today, to buy a DS or Wii game is to buy a game that isn’t very good", back to the fore, doesn't it?

City of Football (not to be confused with this) and Treasure Abyss are the names of the two titles with the first focussing on players acting as a football manager that will also make use of official data from the English Premier League, Italian Serie A, Liga Espanola, and UEFA Champions League.

Treasure Abyss will be a social RPG that will include multiplayer where friends and strangers alike can take on the game's dungeons together.

Namco Bandai also intends to bring both titles to the iPhone and iPod Touch sometime in the future. The Facebook games will also be free to play but players will have to pay for additional items available in both games.

Will you give either of these Facebook games a whirl whn they are released? Tell us so in the comments section below.