1）任天堂子公司The Pokemon Company近日宣布将把《口袋妖怪》引进手机游戏领域，这款名为《Pokemon Iie Tap》的游戏将登陆日本的iOS平台，以及运行Android 2.1的移动设备。

虽然这是首款拥用任天堂版权的iOS和Android应用，但却并非《口袋妖怪》的首款手机应用——早在2006年就有一款名为《Pokemate》的手机游戏在日本发布。该公司尚未公布这款游戏在海外的发布日期。

2）comScore最新报告显示，在2.34亿美国手机用户中，约有76.8%属于智能手机用户。

谷歌Android是美国智能手机市场冠军，在当地拥有约38.1%的智能手机用户，比上一季度增加了5.1%；苹果iOS排行第二，占据26.6%的市场份额，比上一季度上升1.4%；第三名是RIM，市场份额为24.7%。

从移动设备制造商来看，三星是美国市场头号原始设备制造商，占据24.8%的市场份额；其次是占据21.1%的LG，第三是份额达15.1%的摩托罗拉。苹果份额达8.7%（比上一季度上升1.4%），RIM则以8.1%的份额位列第五。

在这些用户中，多数人使用手机发送信息（占69.5%），浏览网页（占39.8%）以及下载内容（占38.6%），仅有18.6%受访者将手机用于听音乐。

3）research2guidance最新报告预测，2015年手机应用开发服务（包括应用开发、管理、发行和推广等）市场规模将达1000亿美元。迄今为止，由第三方开发的应用程序已经占据66%的份额，分析师预测由于还有许多缺乏内部资源的公司希望开拓这一领域的业务，所以这一数据在今后数年仍将持续增长。

research2guidance分析师Ms. Egle Mikalajunaite指出，由于在主流应用商店中的竞争加剧（游戏邦注：各个手机平台现已有14万以上的独立发行商，独立开发商的数量更多），以及相对较高的失败率（在苹果iTunes App Store，前10%的应用程序收获了80%的下载量），许多独立应用开发者现已转向第三方开发领域，为其他公司提供应用开发服务。

目前约96%至98%应用项目收益来自创意、设计和编码环节，但到2015年，这一比例将降至70%；而应用维护、分析、销售和推广服务等环节在2010年仅占2%收益，但在2015年其比例很可能扩大至30%。

美国是当前第三方应用服务需求最大的市场，西欧市场也同样极具潜力，中国和印度则是新兴国家市场的典型代表。

2010年应用开发项目营收为102亿美元，而到了2015年这一市场规模将达1001亿美元，复合年增长率达158%。

4）据pocketgamer报道，日前有两名育碧前高管Emeric Thoa、Audrey Leprince也转战手机游戏领域，成立了新工作室The Game Bakers，准备打造AAA级手机游戏。Emeric Thoa此前是育碧全球概念总监，曾接手Tom 《Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter》、《Splinter Cell Double Agent》和《Rayman Raving Rabbids》等项目，而Audrey Leprince之前则是育碧制作人，不久前负责的项目是《Tom Clancy’s EndWar》。

这家新工作室位于法国巴黎和蒙彼利埃，目前正投入制作第一款游戏《SQUIDS》。据俩人所称，他们认为手机游戏开发周期更短，团队规模更小，而且还能与玩家直接打交道，这些特点正是游戏行业的未来走向。

5）CPA广告服务供应商Tapjoy近日宣布通过JPMorgan再度融资3000万美元，以拓展应用营销和运营业务。尽管苹果在4月份宣布限制App Store非自然下载行为，但Tapjoy首席执行官Mihir Shah表示虽然公司在iOS平台的收益已经不再显著，但最近三个月在Android平台的业务规模却扩大了10倍，另外他们已经开始采用多种广告解决方案，所以公司运营并未受到重创。

6）NetMarketShare调查指出，苹果iPad目前消耗流量占全球网络的1%，在美国的同一比例则是2.1%。

该调查数据还表明，iOS移动设备（iPhone、iPod Touch和iPad）占美国所有移动浏览器的三分之二，其次是Android（占31.6），第三是黑莓（7%）。

7）谷歌技术人员Erica Joy日前透露，谷歌已向苹果App Store提交了Google+的iPhone应用，现在正等待苹果对其进行审核。

谷歌之前已推出可在iPhone及其他智能手机浏览器上顺利运行的网页版Google+，但真正的iPhone应用版本运行速度将更加流畅，并且具备更多功能（例如信息推送服务），支持iPhone用户获得与Android用户一样的应用体验。但Joy称自己还不清楚公司是否将针对iPad推出一个优化版本。

8）Ronimo Games日前表示将推出旗下声誉极佳的实时策略游戏《剑与勇士》（Swords and Soliders）的iPhone/iPad版本（游戏邦注：该版本由Two Tribes开发，Two Tribes日前已通过Twitter宣布将于7月7日推出这款游戏）。

这是一款横向卷轴游戏，据知名评论网站Metacritic资料显示，它在WiiWare平台的平均得分是84，在PSN平台的得分则是81分。

9）据Variety报道，不久前与Rovio签约合作，担任《愤怒的小鸟》电影制作顾问的Maisel日前表示，“外界都在盛传《愤怒的小鸟》将推出电影作品的消息，这件事情是真的，这部电影已经开始投入制作了。”

他称自己很期待《愤怒的小鸟》可以在好莱坞获得影响力，目前他们正与编剧、导演等剧组人员协商剧情的问题，即如何将该游戏简单的情节转变成电影内容。因为难以找到合适的角色，他们打算以动画片形式推出该电影。

10）CyberAgent日前通过位于北京的子公司收购香港智能手机游戏开发商EpicForcc Entertainment公司25%的股份，两者都没有公布具体交易细节。EpicForcc成立于2008年，目前游戏下载量已超过1200万次，最知名代表作是iOS游戏《iFighter 1945》（在App Store售价0.99美元）。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Official Pokemon Game Coming To Smartphones

by Frank Cifaldi

The Pokemon Company is set to bring an official Pokemon game to smartphone devices, marking the first time that an official Nintendo-copyrighted app will be available on the iOS and Android.

Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.

According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.

Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.

Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.

A release outside of Japan has not been announced. （source:gamasutra）

2）comScore: One In Three US Mobile Phones Is A Smartphone

Alexia Tsotsis

According to a just published report from comScore, smartphones have reached a milestone, with 76.8 million Americans out of 234 million American mobile phone users using devices that offer more computing power than feature (or “dumb”) phones.

Google Android led the platform pack among smartphone owners, with 38.1%of US smartphone subscribers, up 5.1 percent from last quarter. Apple was at #2 with 26.6% of the market up 1.4% from last quarter. RIM came in third with 24.7% share.

In terms of handset manufacturers, Samsung was the top OEM across all 234 million phones with 24.8% of the market, followed by LG with 21.1% share and Motorola with 15.1 percent. Apple is making inroads with an 8.7% share (up 1.4% from last time) and RIM follows up at #5 with 8.1% share.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but people are primarily using their phones for texting, at 69.5% of all mobile subscribers, with browsing and downloading happening by 39.8% and 38.6% of subscribers respectively. In contrast, only 18.6% of those surveyed listened to music on their phones.（source:techcrunch）

3）App Development Services Market to Reach $100 Billion by 2015

By Sarah Perez

This post is part of our ReadWriteMobile channel, which is dedicated to helping its community understand the strategic business and technical implications of developing mobile applications. This channel is sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent. As you’re exploring these resources, check out this helpful resource from our sponsors: Cultivating a Developer Ecosystem:

Understanding Their Needs

The market for mobile application development services, which includes things like app creation, management, distribution and extension services, will grow to $100 billion by 2015, according to a new report from research2guidance. Currently, the number of applications developed by third parties is at 66%, but the analyst firm believes this will increase over the next few years as more companies want to publish for mobile, but don’t have in-house resources to do so.

App Developers Turning Away from Independent Publishing to 3rd-Party Development

Most mobile application developers start off as independent publishers, but many are now turning to third-party application development. The change in the business model is due to the increased level of competition in the main app stores and the high failure rates in these crowded markets. Notes research2guidance analyst Ms. Egle Mikalajunaite, in the iTunes App Store, the top 10% of applications generate 80% of all downloads. You can extrapolate from there to begin the process of understanding what the failure rate (in terms of revenue) may be for the long tail of iOS app developers.

And there are a lot of developers, too – not just on iOS, but on all the major mobile platforms including Android, Windows Phone, Ovi and BlackBerry. The analyst firm says there are 140,000 unique publishers across these markets, which means the number of individual developers is even higher.

And for many of developers, third party development is simply becoming a more profitable business to be in.

3rd-Party Development Demand Highest in U.S.

Today, most application project revenue (i.e. 96-98%) comes from app creation services like concept creation, design and coding. By 2015, this percentage will lower to around 70%. App maintenance, analytics, distribution and extension services, however, only accounted for 2% of earnings as of 2010. By 2015, this will increase to around 30%.

Currently, the U.S. leads as the market where these third party services are seeing the most demand, but Western Europe is also a significant player. Emerging markets will grow over the next few years, as well, with India and China leading.

As of 2010, app development project revenue was $10.2 billion, and by 2015, research2guidance says it will reach $100.1 billion. This equates to a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 158%.（source:readwriteweb）

4）Ex-Ubisoft team set up The Game Bakers for triple-A mobile

by Jon Jordan

The brain drain from console development continues apace, with the latest start up headed by two senior staffers from Ubisoft.

Emeric Thoa was worldwide director of conception, working on titles such as Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Splinter Cell Double Agent and Rayman Raving Rabbids, while Audrey Leprince worked as producer, most recently on Tom Clancy’s EndWar.

Now they’re The Game Bakers, who together with a team described as “senior developers and talents from the video game world and the comic book industry”, have set up with the mission to bring triple-A quality games to mobile.

Smaller, agile, faster

Based in Paris and Montpellier, France, they’re currently working on their debut title SQUIDS, an adventure game, in which you recruit a team of misfit squid to banish the black ooze from the seas.

It’s due for release in the autumn.

“When you come out of a long console game development, it’s a breath of fresh air to work on shorter development cycles, with smaller development teams, and have a direct connection with the gamers,” said Leprince.

“It’s a lot of work and presents a lot of new challenges, but it feels like this is where the future of gaming is happening. A lot of senior developers seem to be thinking along those lines, and it’s a great experience to be making games with people who would rather do nothing else but what they are doing.”（source:pocketgamer）

5）Tapjoy Raises $30 Million from JPMorgan to Fuel Push on Android

By Kim-Mai Cutler

Tapjoy, which helps developers on Facebook, Android and iOS earn revenue through offers and CPA ads, raised an additional $30 million from JPMorgan. The announcement comes just a few months after Apple clamped down on one major revenue stream for the company — incentivized installs — or where game developers cross-promote other apps and give their players virtual currency for downloading titles from other companies.

Tapjoy chief executive Mihir Shah said the company remains profitable despite the setback. “We’ve been profitable for a number of quarters and top-line revenue has been growing,” he said. “Our gross margins have grown quarter-over-quarter even after all of this.”

At the same time, the company has seen a tenfold increase on Android in the size of its network and the number of paid actions it pushes in the last three months. Revenue on the platform has also seen a commensurate increase. Tapjoy recently launched a $5 million fund to help developers port their apps to the platform.

Shah did concede that revenue on the iOS platform had flattened out though. “It took a dip and then it flattened out,” he said. “As we release additional ad units for users to engage with, I expect it to increase.”

In April, Apple began rejecting apps that contain offer walls where users can download apps in exchange for virtual currency in a game. Apple argued that these walls were having an undue amount of influence on rankings as many developers were paying for just enough downloads to break into the top of the free charts, where more consumers could see their work.

Shah said the company has since moved to different types of ad units, like ones where users can watch videos (often game trailers) in exchange for virtual currency. There are also cost-per-action ads where users can level up or take an action inside an app in exchange for virtual currency. （source:insidemobileapps）

6）NetMarketShare: iPad now accounts for 1% of web browsing globally, 2.1% in the U.S.

By: Dusan Belic

The new Net Applications NetMarketShare report says that the iPad now accounts for over 1% of worldwide web browsing and 2.1% in the US. Moreover the figures suggest mobile browsing is on the rise all around the world, accounting for 5% globally and more than 8.2% in the U.S. of A.

iPad mobile web usage has been climbing steadily with February being the only exception. Apparently the reason for the drop in use is accounted to holiday buyers cooling down a bit.

Together all iOS-based devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) command two-thirds of all US mobile browsing, and are followed by Android and BlackBerry users with 31.6% and 7%, respectively. Those with Symbian, Java ME and Windows Mobile devices in the U.S. are almost not worth mentioning (as you can see from the graph above), though the situation with Microsoft’s platform may change during this year. I’m sure the picture looks different in other parts of the world, but we don’t have the latest data to present you at the moment…（source:intomobile）

7）Google+ iPhone app now awaiting Apple approval

Devindra Hardawar

Wasting no time whatsoever, Google has submitted a Google+ iPhone app to the App Store and is now awaiting approval by Apple, Google technician Erica Joy revealed today. Google+ is the company’s new social network platform, launched at the end of June.

In her Google+ post, Joy clarified that the app was submitted to Apple “sometime prior to today”, which means that we could see a Google+ app on the iPhone very soon. I would wager that we’ll see the app ready for download within a week or two — assuming that Apple doesn’t hold up the approval process.

Google has a mobile web version of Google+ that runs pretty well on the iPhone (and is accessible by other smartphone browsers). But a genuine iPhone app would undoubtedly be faster and offer more features (like notification messages), that would give iPhone users a similar experience to the existing Google+ Android app.

Joy also noted that she wasn’t sure if the app would also be optimized for the iPad (and that her iPad is “sitting on its dock collecting dust”). It makes more sense for Google to get an iPhone-specific app out first, as there are plenty more iPhones out there than iPads. Google can always update the app later to include full iPad support.（source:venturebeat）

8）Swords and Soldiers marches onto App store this Thursday

by Chris Schilling

Never let it be said that we don’t keep our promises here at Pocket Gamer. Having earlier informed you all that brilliant side-scrolling RTS Swords and Soldiers would be getting its App Store

release date later today (and that we’d let you know as soon as we heard said launch plans), we can now inform you that it’s arriving in just 48 hours’ time.

Two Tribes revealed the date via Twitter, confirming “#SwordsAndSoldiers for iPhone/iPad will be released this Thursday, July 7th!”

It earned almost unanimous praise from reviewers in its WiiWare and PSN incarnations, earning average scores of 84 and 81 respectively from review aggregator Metacritic.（source:pocketgamer）

9）Angry Birds movie actually being made, really

Michael Bay

Rumours that Angry Birds’ Finnish creators Rovio were planning on turning the addictive game franchise into a movie have been around since last summer – but now Variety reports that an Angry Birds film is actually going ahead.

Maisel, who helped turn Marvel into a successful production company and served as executive producer on both Iron Man films, Thor and the upcoming Captain America: The First Avenger, has signed on as a special adviser to Rovio and will exec produce the Angry Birds movie.

He told Variety: ‘There has been so much chatter about an ‘Angry Birds’ movie, but it’s now real. The process is starting now.’

He added: ‘People are interacting with these characters six inches from them each time they play, and that creates an emotional connection… It’s a global thing, that’s something I’ve never seen before. It will be exciting to expand [the franchise] within Hollywood.’

According to the report, discussions are already under way with screenwriters and directors on how to turn the game’s rather basic plot – pigs steal birds’ eggs, birds destroy stuff to get them back – into a film.

It’s expected that that film will be animated, given the difficulty in finding actors who are spherical, legless and covered in brightly-coloured feathers. Rovio bought Finnish animation firm Kombo last month, and it’s believed that they will be working on a series of short films that will lead up to the feature-length movie.

Rovio’s CEO Mikael Hed said that Maisel was the best person Rovio could have hoped to work with, on the grounds that ‘George Lucas was unavailable.’ （source:metro）

10）CyberAgent Invests In Hong Kong-Based Gaming Company EpicForce [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

CyberAgent, through its subsidiary CyberAgent Ventures (Beijing) Investment Consulting Co., made yet another investment: this time, the company acquired a 25% stake in smartphone game maker EpicForcc Entertainment.

Details of the deal weren’t disclosed, but CyberAgent was apparently interested in the fact that EpicForce is based in Hong Kong (meaning it’s close to the Chinese market) and that its games (see an overview here) were downloaded over 12 million times so far.

EpicForce’s most famous game is probably iFighter 1945 for iOS ($0.99 in the App Store). The company was established in 2008.（source: serkantoto）