1. 苹果官方网站日前推出了App Store 250亿次应用下载倒计时，目前下载量已经达到了243.128亿次。去年7月份的时候，苹果宣布App Store实现了150亿次的应用下载量，换句话说，App Store平均每月的下载量达到了15亿次（可能得益于holiday quarter和iphone4s的发行）。按照Peter Oppenheimer早期的说法，去年第四季度苹果总共向开发者分成7亿美元，自设立商店以来总共分成40亿美元。

iso app store from ifanr.com

Screen shot from insidemobileapps.com

2. 据Businessweek的消息，社交游戏开发商Zynga可能依托现有的资源和用户优势介入游戏发行市场。按照不具名的消息源称，这个发行计划可能将允许独立开发者在Zynga游戏或者独立平台做相关营销。事实上，EA之前就有相似的项目，比如整合了Playfish、EA和Chillingo资源的EA Partner。

zynga from blog.games.com

3. BAFTA最新公布了各个奖项的入围名单，与社交游戏和手机游戏相关的两个奖项入围情况如下。手机和手持游戏机方面，包括Dead Space、Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint、Peggle HD、Quarrel、Super Mario Land 3D和The Nightjar；浏览器游戏方面，包括：Gardens of Time、I Am Playr、Monstermind、Resistance 3、Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure和The Sims Social。

4. 据Yahoo Games的消息称Rovio将推出新版游戏Angry Birds Space，按照Sini Matikainen的说法，这款游戏将会在原版游戏的基本上添加更多的新鲜玩法。和其他游戏不同，Angry Birds Space将同步推出相关的动画和周边产品。Angry Birds系列至今为止下载已经超过7亿次，Angry Birds Space将于3月22日正式发行。

Angry Birds Space from gamezebo.com

5. 之前我们曾分析过为何日本的IP游戏和卡牌游戏如此流行，按照当时的数据，去年底GREE旗下前20强游戏有14款为卡牌相关，Mobage旗下前20强游戏有10款为卡牌相关；去年底 GREE旗下前20强游戏有7款与IP相关，Mobage旗下前20强游戏有8款与IP相关。这些卡牌包括顶尖的诸如Gree平台的doliland或者 Konami旗下的Dragon Collection。现在gloops今日对外宣称将在Mobage再推出卡牌游戏Dubbed Daishoukan! Magigate。

gloops magigate from serkantoto.com

mobage gloops magigate from serkantoto.com

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1. Apple is inching closer to crossing 25 billion mark for downloads of iPhone and iPad apps. That’s up from 15 billion downloads in early July, implying that the iOS platform has on average seen about 1.5 billion downloads per month between then and now. That, of course, was backloaded into the holiday quarter after Apple launched the iPhone 4S.

To celebrate, Apple is awarding a $10,000 gift card for the app store, like it did more than a year ago when iOS crossed 10 billion downloads.

Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said in the last earnings call that the company had paid out more than $4 billion to developers, including $700 million in the fourth quarter. Android platform is likely at half of iOS’ cumulative downloads after crossing 11 billion installs last month, according to Google’s most recent earnings call.（Source：insidemobileapps）

2. Being the top Facebook game developer just isn’t enough for Zynga, apparently. According to a report in Businessweek, the now-public FarmVille creator looks to put its publishing plans into motion as early as March. Aligning with a statement from Zynga CTO Cadir Lee, the developer’s upcoming Project Z and Zynga Direct will prove instrumental to the publishing move.

According to Businessweek’s nameless sources, the publishing program will allow independent game developers to advertise their offerings in Zynga’s games and on a separate web portal. Of course, Zynga will take a cut of said indie games’ revenue, as will Facebook, since these indie Facebook games would use both Facebook Connect and Facebook Credits.

However, Zynga’s publishing plans all depend on whether talks with potential partners go through as well as the success of internal development of the publishing platform, sources told Businessweek. For Zynga to become a publisher–like, say, how EA made its way into social games–at this point in the game makes sense, as the developer’s costs for creating new hits on Facebook will only increase.

That, coupled with the fact that Zynga needs a stream of new games to keep momentum, only makes this move into game publishing more likely for the CityVille maker. However, what’s still in the dark is exactly how much control Zynga plans to exert over the games it publishes and how it will choose its games. Something tells us that certain game makers won’t be interested.（Source：blog.games）

3. While the video games industry still doesn’t have an “Oscars” of its own, there are plenty of organizations out there that are trying to change that. One of the most respected of these, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, has just announced its list of nominees for the 2012 BAFTA Video Game Awards. And while big budget studio titles like Batman: Arkham City, Portal 2, and Skyrim make up the bulk of nominations in most categories, there are a few awards included that you might not have expected to see in such a show.

This year’s video game BAFTA’s will feature awards recognizing excellence in handheld gaming, as well as browser-based titles. This second category includes more than a few social favorites found on Facebook.

And the nominees are…

Mobile and Handheld

* Dead Space

* Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint

* Peggle HD

* Quarrel

* Super Mario Land 3D

* The Nightjar

Online – Browser

* Gardens of Time

* I Am Playr

* Monstermind

* Resistance 3

* Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure

* The Sims Social

There are a few interesting things to note with some of these nominees. Firstly, Peggle came out in 2007, and while Peggle HD hit the iPad in the last year, it’s still a nomination for a game that’s essentially unchanged from five years ago. Second, two of the browser nominations (Resistance 3 and Skylanders) are browser-based tie-ins for existing console games – but neither of the games they’re tied in to are nominated for anything.（Source：gamezebo）

4. I believe John F. Kennedy said it best in 1962 when he declared “we choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Rovio, it would seem, subscribes to the same core values. On March 22nd, they’ll be flinging Angry Birds right into orbit.

Angry Birds Space will take the series tried and tested formulas and throw a great big wrench into the works by introducing zero gravity environments. These in turn will lead to new challenges, like slow-motion puzzles and lightspeed destruction.

“We think fans are really going to love it because we’ve already gotten amazing feedback on the physics of our games,” Andrew Stalbow, GM of Rovio North America, told Yahoo! Games. “They’re so accurate and easy to grasp that some teachers use Angry Birds in their lessons about projectile motion.”

Few other details are known yet, but Rovio has confirmed to Yahoo! Games that both NASA and National Geographic are launch partners, and that players will be introduced to some new birds as well as a new twist on some old favorites – namely, super powers.

Be sure to stay tuned to Gamezebo for our full preview once more details surface in the coming weeks. And just remember: In space, no one can hear you sqwak.（Source：gamezebo）

5. How long will Japan’s social card battle game boom last? My prediction is that Japanese players will start having enough of this genre in 12-18 months – there are simply too many of these games around, and they all work the same way (see here for my explanation of social card game mechanics in Japan).

That didn’t stop Tokyo-based gloops, the biggest third-party game provider on Mobage (and a sure IPO candidate for later this year), to roll out yet another social card game today.

Dubbed Daishoukan! Magigate, the new title is the 12th entry in gloops’ long list of Dairantou!! social games (daishoukan means “great summoner”, while dairantou translates to “big brawl”).

Mobage players will be able to choose between “several hundred” different cards to battle monsters (and each other) in a fantasy world – as usual.

The game is available on Mobage for Japanese feature phones as well as Android and iOS.（Source：serkantoto）