The site has been pitched as Sony Ericsson's full-scale move into mobile content retail, selling music, games, ringtones, wallpapers and themes.
It builds on the company's low-profile PlayNow service, but PlayNow Arena is a very different beast, with a slick website for browsing content, alongside the mobile version.
I talked to Sony Ericsson's Peter Ahnegard last week at the Games Convention show in Leipzig, to find out how PlayNow Arena will benefit mobile game developers and publishers.
Although the portal's music aspects are creating the most noise, games are still an important part of it.
"70 per cent of the revenue generated from our existing channels comes from games," says Ahnegard. "The consumers who came to those channels were primarily looking for games, so we have to recognise that with PlayNow Arena."
You can check the portal out now by clicking here - it's got a whizzy spinning globe interface, and offers games in a 'Most Wanted' chart, a 'PlayNow Arena Picks' list, and a 'Free Items' search option.
"It's giving a very rich experience to game consumers," says Ahnegard. "We'll have at least 250 games per phone model in the system, and they'll be displayed in a richer way, with better artwork, animated GIFs and textual descriptions."
Right now, PlayNow Arena is just about selling mobile games, but Ahnegard says that will hopefully evolve.
"We're looking to add some service layers for mobile gaming as well. We can do a lot there."
Whether this involves N-Gage-style community features or free demos, or other aspects, he doesn't say. However, one potentially powerful feature will be cross-selling games with other types of content.
"If you search for Britney Spears, not only will you get the music tracks, but you'll also get the wallpapers, and the games too if there are any," says Ahnegard.
Sony Ericsson has already announced that it's working with two aggregators to help manage the games side of PlayNow Arena - HandyGames and GlobalFun.
Ahnegard is keen to ensure that smaller developers get a decent shot at having their games appear on PlayNow Arena, through these partners.
"To be totally honest, more of the differentiating ideas that I get approached with are from small developers than from the big publishers," he says.
"They're more ready to take risks, and hopefully they understand we are willing to listen. In order to drive this business forward, we really need to listen to those ideas and see if there's something we can pick up on. But of course, we are still working with the bigger companies too."
As someone heavily involved with Sony Ericsson's embedding strategy, choosing which games and game demos to preload on handsets, Ahnegard has views on what he's looking for from developers and publishers.
"I'm excited about games that have some kind of platform access, whether it's to the camera, the media player or the accelerometer," he says.
"But the most important thing is that these things are used to benefit the gameplay, rather than just for their own sake. Making it a natural part of the game is the tricky part."
With all the hype around iPhone and N-Gage, it's tempting to ask what Sony Ericsson is doing to promote higher-end mobile gaming too - given that it has Symbian handsets on the market, with the Windows Mobile-toting Xperia X1 on the way.
"Java has been and will be our prime platform for gaming," he responds. "Java is evolving too, with mid-tier phones coming that have 3D hardware acceleration, which Java can benefit from with new powerful JSRs. People talk about native development, but Java is getting native too, the way it's being built up."
Ahnegard stresses that Sony Ericsson isn't ignoring the Symbian platform, pointing out that the W960 handset has a swizzed-up version of EA's SSX 3 preloaded.
However, he says that lower-end phones are still capable of delivering some innovative gaming experiences, and cites the example of the console market as inspiration.
"People associate a gaming phone with high specs, but look at what Nintendo did with the Wii console," he says. "It's not about what's under the hood, but it's about how the games interact with the platform. That's how you make it fun."
However, Ahnegard claims that Apple's entry into the mobile market with iPhone, and the ensuing hype around its gaming capabilities, is an opportunity rather than a threat for Sony Ericsson.
"Mobile gaming feels cool again, and for that reason I'm really happy for the success of Apple," he says.
"If they get more support by developers and game providers, and consumers enjoy the games, it's good for mobile gaming as an industry. That's what we really need right now: we need to grow this business before we start arguing about 'that's my turf and that's your turf'."
