1）据All Things Digital报道，Rovio品牌营销和分析高级副总裁Wibe Wagemans（曾任微软Bing团队高管）日前表示，《愤怒的小鸟》已成为Google+Games平台头号热门游戏。

Google+目前共有16款游戏，其中不少游戏出自Zynga、Wooga、EA和Playdom等主流社交游戏开发商之手。Wagemans表示，Rovio在过去两年中的发展速度超过了MySpace、YouTube、亚马逊和Skype等公司，已经是“史上发展最快的消费者品牌”。

2）尽管已实现800万次的iOS付费下载量，但手机游戏公司NaturalMotion仍决定向免费模式进军，并向iOS平台发布免费游戏《My Horse》（游戏邦注：其开发商是旧金山工作室MunkyFun）。玩家在游戏中的任务是照顾自己的马匹，并让其参加赛马，可通过IAP功能购买虚拟商品。

该公司首席执行官Torsten Reil还透露，在《My Horse》的测试阶段，甚至有些玩家愿意在游戏中消费150至300美元。

3）IDC最近报告预测，2011年全球平板电脑出货量将达6250万部，第二季度的平板电脑出货量同比去年增长88.9%。

IDC认为苹果在未来几年仍是平板电脑市场主导力量，其目前份额已达68.3%，Android平板电脑在同一季度市场份额从原来的34%下滑至26.8%。

该报告预测，由于惠普停产基于webOS的TouchPad，致使后者售价降至99美元，webOS在今年第三季度仍将占据4.7%的平板电脑市场份额。

亚马逊将在今年末推出7英寸的250美元平板电脑（几乎仅是最便宜的iPad一半左右的售价），在发布头一两个月也可能实现数百万出货量。

4）据venturebat报道，跨平台游戏公司MindJolt日前宣布其手机游戏收益已占公司总营收的三分之一，并于最近又发布了五款新手机游戏《Warp Dash》、《Master Shot》、《DressUp!-Fashion》、《Mini Café》和《Skies of Glory》（游戏邦注：该公司于今年4月收购了手机游戏开发商SGN）。

MindJolt目前在Facebook、网页和手机平台的游戏安装量已超过1亿次，其中手机游戏安装量逾3000万，在社交网络则是7000万，网页平台是2500万。该公司过去主要靠广告和付费下载模式创收，但采用免费增值模式后，虚拟商品销售额（主要来自手机游戏）已占公司总收益的三分之一。

MindJolt竞争对手包括Zynga、EA、Glu Mobile等公司，其核心成员曾经创立MySpace。

5）掌机游戏开发商Rockstar Games日前宣布将把经典游戏《英雄本色》推向移动设备平台，支持用户通过该版游戏连接至Rockstar Games Social Club，但令人困惑的是，它甚至支持使用有线控制器（但我们实在很难想象iPhone 5等智能手机设备会支持有线控制器）。

RockStar并未宣布该版本具体发布日期，但有人称该版本有可能与明年3月出炉的《英雄本色3》一起面世，届时大家才会知晓该公司所谓的“移动设备”究竟是什么概念。

6）由Mike Ouye（前Playdom、Crowdstar成员）、Pete Hawley（前Lionhead、SCEE、Criterion成员）等游戏元老成立的LBS手机游戏公司Red Robot Labs日前融资850万美元，支持者包括Benchmark Capital、Shasta Venture等，Playdom联合创始人Rick Thompson以及前Facebook、Playdom高管Chamath Palihapitiya也参与了本轮融资。该公司在之前的种子轮融资中已筹得200万美元。

Red Robot Labs其他核心人物包括其首席技术Kohn Harris（前Crowdstar、EA成员），该公司已有自己的LBS平台R2 Gaming Network。

该公司推出的首款Android游戏《Life is Crime》于9月初在美国发布，目前在Android Market下载量为1万至5万次左右。

7）据pocketgamer报道，Future Publishing的2011年金摇杆奖组委会日前公布了数款获得“最佳移动游戏”提名的作品名单：

《无尽之剑》

《游戏发展国》

《美式橄榄球2：复仇》

《死亡空间》

《翼飞冲天》

《The Heist》

《狩猎者：第一章》

《怪物猎人：动感狩猎》

《实况赛车2》

《街头霸王IV：伏特》

《豆腐忍者小冒险》

《Order and Chaos》

《水果忍者》

《割绳子》

《Feed Me Oil》

《NBA Jam by EA Sports》

《极品飞车：热力追踪》

《近轨道先锋2》

《索尼克世嘉全明星赛车》

《愤怒的小鸟：里约》（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Angry Birds is the top game on Google+ Games, Rovio exec says

by Joe Osborne

Where else will the Angry Birds crash land into and dominate? Nintendo 3DS? Xbox 360? Your scientific calculator? Who knows, but according to All Things Digital, Rovio SVP of brand advertising and analytics Wibe Wagemans said yesterday at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle, Wash. that Angry Birds is the number on game on Google+ Games.

Granted, that’s out of all 16 games on the platform right now, but some of those games were put there by the likes of major social game creators like Zynga, Wooga, EA and Playdom.

Wagemans, formerly an executive on Microsoft’s Bing team, went on to say that Rovio has grown faster in the past two years than companies like MySpace, YouTube, Amazon and Skype. He also said, “We are now the fastest-growing consumer brand in history,” ATD reports.

When you think about it, though: Not only is the Angry Birds game on nearly every gaming platform under the sun, but the little wingless cartoons and their amorphous green piglet enemies have been transformed into plush toys, t-shirts, board games, cook books, a feature film–need I go on?

During his talk in Seattle, Wageman revealed that Rovio welcomes over 120 million monthly Angry Birds players across the myriad of platforms the game is available on. Simply put, the western world is hooked on Angry Birds (it’s science, remember?) and soon so will the East, if Rovio has any say in it. Sure, that’s less than half of the 273 million or so monthly players Zynga caters to on Facebook alone, to which Wageman said, “We haven’t even launched on Facebook yet.” Oh … oh, no.（source:games）

2）NaturalMotion makes switch to freemium, despite more than 8 million paid downloads on iOS

by Keith Andrew

With little explanation, NaturalMotion has announced it is to adopt the free-to-play model wholesale moving forward, despite its paid titles on iOS topping 8 million downloads since launch.

The adoption of the new model, revealed in an interview with VentureBeat, will kick off with the launch of My Horse on iOS.

The game will task players with taking care of their own horse – from grooming and feeding it to entering it into competitions – with in-app purchases (IAP) forming the game’s backbone.

No horsing around

Indeed, CEO Torsten Reil claims some players who took on My Horse during its limited beta were willing to spend between $150 and $300 during play.

Developed by MunkyFun in San Francisco, Reil also suggested My Horse is the firm’s first reaction to the mistake it made initially focusing on the sports genre.

Backbreaker Football, it’s suggested, never recovered after negative reviews focused on the game’s bugs at launch, failing to gain ground on big titles from EA and the like.

However, despite the claim that the firm’s most recent releases are enjoying a five-fold return on investment, ‘high-end social games’ will now form NaturalMotion’s focus, with six further free releases also in the works.（source:pocketgamer）

3）Tablet Sales Explode Past Expectations, Driven by the iPad

By John Paul Titlow

As expected, the tablet is exploding. Worldwide, 62.5 million units are projected to have shipped in 2011, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). The organization increased its forecast from 53.5 million units after demand for the iPad 2 drove additional tablet sales in the second quarter of this year. Year over year, tablet shipments in the second quarter increased by 88.9%.

Apple, who is expected to remain dominant in this space for at least a few more years, leads the pack with 68.3% of the worldwide tablet market share. In the same quarter, Android’s share of the tablet market actually decreased to 26.8% from 34% in the first quarter. Google’s slowly-growing threat to the iPad was chiseled away at by both RIM’s Blackberry Playbook and the popularity of Apple’s iPad 2.

“We expect shipment totals to continue to grow in the third and fourth quarter, as additional vendors introduce more price-competitive Android products into the market and Apple works to maintain its dominance in the category,” said IDC’s mobile research director Tom Mainelli.

The fallout from HP’s decision to end production of their webOS-powered TouchPad tablet is expected to leave its mark on the global market as well. Thanks to the device’s drop to a $99 price tag, IDC predicts that WebOS will have 4.7% of the market by the third quarter this year.

The Tablet Market is Young, But Shaping Up to Be Revolutionary

Of course, this space as we know it is still relatively young. The iPad only launched at the beginning of last year, but has hugely successful, leaving RIM, Google, HP and other players scrambling to get their own challengers to market. Overall tablet sales have been so significant that they’re already making a dent in PC sales and tablets are widely expected to begin outselling PCs within the next few years.

This revolution in computing is only beginning. Before the end of year, Amazon is expected to launch its own 7-inch tablet for $250, which is half the price of the cheapest iPad. Some are predicting that device could sell a few million units in its first month or two of availability, and potentially play a significant role in helping Android mount a viable challenge to the iPad. （source:readwriteweb）

4）MindJolt gets a third of its revenues from social mobile games

Dean Takahashi

MindJolt got a lot of goodness with its acquisition of mobile game maker SGN back in April. Mobile game revenues now account for a third of MindJolt’s revenue and the company recently released five more mobile games.

The results show that MindJolt is well on its way to having three legs of a stool in terms of business diversification, with businesses focused on Facebook, the web and mobile. Altogether, MindJolt’s games have been installed more than 100 million times.

“This feels like success,” said the company’s chief operating officer, Colin Digiaro, in an interview. “We’ve also begun to generate a lot of revenue through virtual goods purchases.”

The former SGN crew is turning out to be a productive bunch. The team recently launched the games Warp Dash, Master Shot, DressUp!-Fashion, and Mini Café. The LA-based company also recently re-released the SGN flying combat simulation game Skies of Glory.

“All of these games hit at about the same time, and it shows we’ve made a lot of investments,” Digiaro said. “The good thing is that we can now distribute our games to a sizable installed base.”

In the past, MindJolt generated most of its revenue via ads or paid downloads. But under free-to-play, users play for free and pay real money for virtual goods. Virtual goods — mostly from mobile games — now account for about a third of the company’s sales.

Digiaro said that the company plans to launch seven more iOS games later this year and will build franchises inspired by SGN properties DressUp-Fashion!, Fluff Friends, and Bird’s the Word. That’s a big change from the company’s position just five months ago, Digiaro said.

MindJolt has had more than 30 million mobile installs, 70 million social network installs and 25 million web installs. Rivals include Zynga, Electronic Arts, Glu Mobile and a wide variety of others. MindJolt is led by the team that founded MySpace and it has funding from Austin Ventures.

Over time, Digiaro said that the company will expand to the Android platform.（source:venturebeat）

5）Max Payne is going mobile

By Jim Squires

Console action games have featured a lot of renegade cops over the years, but few are as notable as Max Payne. With the third entry in his series confirmed for a release next March, developer Rockstar Games have let an interesting tidbit slip: the original Max Payne will be coming to mobile devices.

In a recent press release for Max Payne 3, Rockstar Games confirmed that the original Max Payne “will receive the full HD treatment for mobile devices.” In addition to an HD graphical overhaul that will include “high-resolution textures that take advantage of the latest mobile technologies,” players can also look forward to connectivity with Rockstar Games Social Club, and, most surprisingly, “support for wired controllers.”

This “support for wired controllers” thing has me a little… confused. While it’s certainly possible that someone may release a wired controller peripheral for Android or iOS devices before Max Payne’s release, it doesn’t seem terribly likely. And if you’re at all familiar with Max Payne, you’ll no doubt agree that a device like the iCade or Atari Arcade simply wouldn’t make sense for such a game.

With no release date, it’s entirely possibly Max Payne’s mobile release could be timed to coincide with Max Payne 3 next March. If it is, they could be prepping this for tech we don’t even know about yet.

Could Rockstar’s definition of “mobile” be broader than what we’re thinking? I don’t see the iPhone 5 as coming with a wired controller, but still, I can’t help but wonder what devices they’re really targeting.（source:gamezebo）

6）Location-based mobile gaming start up Red Robot Labs raises $8.5 million

by Jon Jordan

Founded in January 2011 by a series of game veterans, including Mike Ouye (Playdom, Crowdstar) and Pete Hawley (Lionhead, SCEE, Criterion), Red Robot Labs is another company demonstrating there’s an audience and VC cash in the freemium location-based mobile gaming sector.

Currently only available in the US, its Android Mafia Wars-style game Life is Crime, launched in early September.

Listed as having been downloaded between 10,000 to 50,000 times from the Android Market, its potential is obviously sufficient to persuade investors including Benchmark Capital and Shasta Venture to drop $8.5 million into the company’s first proper funding round.

Existing investors Rick Thompson, co-founder of Playdom and Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook and Playdom executive, also participated. The company raised $2 million in its initial seed round.

Who’s the Don?

Aside from the experience of the founders, which also includes ex-Crowdstar and EA tech guy John Harris as CTO, the company has its own location-based platform, the R2 Gaming Network, that it intends to use for other products.

As part of the deal, Benchmark Capital’s Mitch Lasky, previously JAMDAT CEO, and Robert Coneybeer from Shasta Ventures, will join Red Robot’s board.（source:pocketgamer）

7）Tiny Wings, Game Dev Story, To-Fu among the 2011 Golden Joystick Awards nominees

by Anthony Usher

The nominees for Future Publishing’s 2011 Golden Joystick Awards have been announced, with several great iPhone and Android titles in the running for ‘Best Mobile Game’.

Several of Pocket Gamer’s highest-rated titles are included, such as Platinum Award-winning offerings Real Racing 2 and Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing.

Other Pocket Gamer favourites like Game Dev Story, Dead Space, and Tiny Wings are also calling for your votes.

Check out the full list of games below.

Infinity Blade

Game Dev Story

Backbreaker 2: Vengeance

Dead Space

Tiny Wings

The Heist

Hunters: Episode 1

Monster Hunter: Dynamic Hunting

Real Racing 2

Street Fighter IV: Volt

To-Fu: The Trials of Chi

Order and Chaos

Fruit Ninja

Cut The Rope

Feed Me Oil

NBA Jam by EA Sports

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit

N.O.V.A 2 – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance

Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing

Angy Birds Rio

If you fancy voting for any of the titles above simply head on over to the Golden Joystick Awards 2011 website and have your say. （source:pocketgamer）