The Chinese social networking services website 51.com.com is planning to launch a game platform in the coming days and it will also be the first time for the website to tap the game industry since it gained a huge investment from China's leading online game company Giant Interactive Group.

As a leading SNS website in China, 51.com has been planning to shift to the commercial game sector before it gained the investment from Giant Interactive Group in July 2008 and the company has set up a department that is responsible for the development of online games. Over several months' preparation, 51.com has recently announced that its game platform will be formally launched in mid-October and a beta test, in which about 60,000 to 70,000 people will participate, will begin at the same time.

The game platform of 51.com will focus on leisure and friend-making functions, providing poker and board games as well as other leisure games.

Hu Bin, general manager for 51.com's Game Business Department, says this game platform of 51.com is fully self-developed by the company and 51.com owns the complete intellectual property rights. In regards to the large user group of 51.com, the company adopts servers with extra large capacity in the management of the platform. At the same time, relevant emergency measures are also ready to deal with any situation.

In the future, the company will launch more game brands and provide a platform for online games.