1）据insidesocialgames报道，电视名人Ryan Seacrest（游戏邦注：真人秀节目《美国偶像》主持人）日前通过Twitter透露，Zynga手机游戏《Draw Something》已推出续作《Draw Something 2》。

Zynga副总裁兼OMGPOP首席执行官Dan Porter随后迅速回应确认了这一消息，也通过Twitter发布了该游戏的官方logo。

Ryan Seacrest Twitter(from insidesocialgames)

Dan Porter Twitter(from insidesocialgames)

AppData数据显示，《Draw Something》目前月活跃用户超过500万，这些只是通过Facebook帐户连接到游戏的用户。

2）据Mobile Magazine报道，微软日前透露将于2014年停止支持Windows Phone 7.8（截止时间为2014年9月9日)和Windows 8（截止时间为2014年7月8日）操作系统，但并未宣布用户是否能够将这两个操作系统升级到更新版本。

3）据insidemobileapps报道，EA日前宣布John Riccitiello将于3月30日起不再担任公司首席执行官及董事会成员，将由前任首席执行官Larry Probst担任临时董事长。

Riccitiello表示，他认为自己应该为公司今年财报不理想而负全部责任，所以决定离开公司。

EA-John-Riccitiello(from media.pcgamer)

EA还发布了Probst在任时的成绩，Probst担任CEO期间成功让公司年收益从1.75亿美元攀升至30亿美元，将EA引进移动、在线平台和其他新兴市场，并向75个国家/地区扩展市场。

4）据Serkantoto报道，日本社交游戏公司GREE于3月14日与社交游戏开发商AltPlus在东京成立一家合资公司AltDash，将向日本和全球市场推出手机游戏（游戏邦注：AltPlus已在3月14日成功进行IPO，目前所有游戏都是通过GREE平台发布）。

在AltDash的公司股份中，AltPlus占比51%，GREE占49%，将由AltPlus首席执行官Takeshi Ishii（在2010年成立AltPlus之前拥有Koei和Capcom工作背景）主导这家合资公司的事务。

5）据Techcrunch报道，黑莓首席执行官Thorsten Heins在最近采访中表示，他预计到公司本周发布Z10智能手机时，BlackBerry World应用数量将突破10万。

BlackBerry-World_Logo(from cdn.lowyat.net)

在该公司发布BlackBerry 10之时，BlackBerry World应用数量为7万，但该平台若要与苹果和谷歌等移动巨头相抗衡，就必须得到大型开发商和服务支持。

6）NPD Group最近报告显示，目前美国家庭连网设备已超过5亿台，平均每户家庭拥有5.7台连网设备，其数量是平均每户家庭成员的两倍以上。

tablet user(from princetonmarketing.net)

尽管PC普及率仍然占比93%，平板电脑、智能手机等其他连网设备发展极为迅速。

在过去三个月中，美国家庭新增了2600万以上的平板电脑和智能手机。该时期智能手机普及率从52%增长至57%，平板电脑普及率则从35%增长至53%。（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）Ryan Seacrest reveals, Zynga confirms, Draw Something 2

Mike Thompson

Television personality Ryan Seacrest today revealed the existence of Draw Something 2, the sequel to OMGPOP’s runaway mobile success Draw Something.

Seacrest, best known for hosting Fox’s long-running television show American Idol, Seacrest posted the following image to his Twitter account today.

Zynga VP and OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter was quick to confirm Seacret’s claim that the public was checking out some legit Draw Something 2 artwork, responding with the game’s official logo.

Zynga’s acquisition of OMGPOP made some serious headlines last year, especially since the deal was reportedly worth somewhere around $200 million. Zynga’s staying mum on exactly what kind of new features the game will contain, or even when it will release, but Porter’s comment implies Draw Something 2 will continue to leverage social networks so players have more ways to share their images (something that users have long been clamoring for).

Seacrest and Draw Something have long been associated with one another, especially following the revelation that Seacrest was producing a Draw Something-themed gameshow for CBS.

What will be interesting to see is how Zynga handles Draw Something after its sequel is launched. AppData estimates the game still has over 5 million monthly active users, and those are only the users who connect the game to their Facebook accounts.（source：insidesocialgames）

2）Microsoft to stop supporting Windows Phone by mid 2014

by Daniel Gumble

Question mark over whether Windows Phone 7.8 and 8 will be upgradable to newer operating system.

Microsoft has revealed that it will stop supporting Windows Phone 7.8 and 8 operating systems by mid 2014, Mobile Magazine has reported.

The company stated on its website that it will continue to update the operating system on Windows Phone devices until July 8th 2014 for Windows Phone 8 devices and September 9th for Windows Phone 7.8.

This means that, while customers will continue to receive updates such as security upgrades, there will be a time when the platform is not supported for those who entered into two-year deals after Windows Phone 8 devices became available at the end of 2012.

Microsoft has yet to state whether or not consumers will be able to upgrade their Windows phone 7.8 and 8 devices to newer versions of the operating system.（source：mobile-ent）

3）EA CEO John Riccitiello steps down, Larry Probst appointed Executive Chairman

Emanuel Maiberg

Game developer and publisher Electronic Arts today announced John Riccitiello will step down as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors, effective March 30. Larry Probst, who was CEO prior to Riccitiello, was appointed Executive Chairman while the Board searches for a new, permanent CEO.

EA made the announcement today via an official release, also stating that the company is considering both external and internal candidates to replace Riccitiello.

“My decision to leave EA is really all about my accountability for the shortcomings in our financial results this year,” Riccitiello explained in his letter to EA (published by Kotaku).

“It currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued to the Street, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. And for that, I am 100 percent accountable.”

Riccitiello also took pride in the strides the company has made in the mobile space, telling his employees: “You are number one in the fastest growing segment, mobile, with incredible games like The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Real Racing 3, Bejeweled, SCRABBLE and Plants v. Zombies.”

EA’s release cited Probst’s accomplishments when he was last CEO, also specifying his contributions to online and mobile. “As CEO, Probst successfully grew the Company’s annual revenues from $175 million to approximately$3 billion, led EA into new platforms such as mobile, online and other emerging markets and expanded its international presence to more than 75 countries.”（source：insidemobileapps）

4）AltDash: GREE And Social Game Maker AltPlus Set Up Joint Venture

by Dr. Serkan Toto

GREE has entered a partnership with social game maker AltPlus under which the two companies have set up a joint venture in Tokyo on March 14.

The background here is that all of AltPlus’ games so far are being distributed via GREE at the moment (full list here).

Not too surprisingly, the new company – dubbed AltDash – will produce mobile content aimed at the Japanese and global markets.

AltDash is actually majority-owned by the smaller partner (51% vs. 49% for GREE). It will also be led by AltPlus CEO Takeshi Ishii who used to work for Koei and Capcom before founding AltPlus in 2010.

The plan for AltDash is to release a total of four games by the end of this year, beginning with the first title in May.

AltPlus successfully went IPO on March 14 (ticker: 3672) – the stock received so many buy orders on that day that it remained untraded.（source：serkantoto）

5）BlackBerry CEO Expects 100,000 Apps To Be Available In Time For BlackBerry 10′s U.S. Debut

Chris Velazco

BlackBerry’s first BlackBerry 10 smartphone is about to make its official U.S. consumer debut in just a few days, and the long wait has seen the size of the platform’s app selection swell considerably. According to an interview with BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins conducted by the Australian Financial Review, Heins expects the BlackBerry World content portal to cross the 100,000 app mark in time for the company’s big Z10 smartphone launch later this week.

It’s a notable (if not entirely significant — there’s an argument for quality over quantity) milestone, and one that BlackBerry may be trying to highlight ahead of its fiscal Q4 2013 earnings release on March 28. That’s a sizable jump from the roughly 70,000 apps that debuted along with BlackBerry 10, but the platform still needs support from big-name developers and services if it wants to pose a credible threat to Apple and Google’s mobile hegemony.

Recent reports about Instagram and Netflix for instance painted a portrait of two companies that were hesitant to devote engineering resources to an unproven platform — granted, Instagram appears to be working on an Android port of its app, but the experience of Android apps running BB10 in general leaves something to be desired. The severity of the situation isn’t lost on Heins — he noted to Financial Review’s Paul Smith that BlackBerry is working to further talks with these sorts of prominent parties, and that some companies may be warming to BlackBerry 10.

“I think we are seeing the dynamic changing over time as they want to watch and see how BlackBerry 10 is making it in the market,” Heins pointed out. “They want ROI on their development dollars as well… it is our job to convince them that BB10 is a successful platform.”

Apparently, the process of proving BlackBerry 10 to be a successful platform involves a little smack talk. In a curious display of fighting up, Heins jabbed at Apple for taking the conservative route in fleshing out iOS. As he put it, the “rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly,” before pointing out that the iOS interface is five years old. It’s a valid criticism to be sure, and BlackBerry 10 definitely sports some neat new UI flourishes, but let’s not forget that the company’s stock is worth a fraction of what it was five years ago. It’ll take more than talk to fix that.（source：techcrunch）

6）American homes have more Internet-connected devices than people

Rebecca Grant

Instead of sitting around a fire or a dinner table, the modern trope is of an American family sitting around their mobile devices.

U.S. homes now have more than half a billion devices connected to the Internet, according to a study by the NPD Group. Furthermore, the overall number of connected devices per household is 5.7. This is more than twice the average number of people per household. The proliferation of connected devices is primarily fueled by tablet sales, although PC penetration is still the highest at 93 percent.

“Even with this extraordinary growth in the smartphone and tablet market, PCs are still the most prevalent connected device in U.S. Internet households, and this is a fact that won’t be changing any time soon,” said director of devices at NOD John Buffone in a statement. “However, when you look at the combined number of smartphones and tablets consumers own, for the first time ever it exceeded the installed base of computers.”

The growth is primarily fueled by the addition of over 26 million tablets and smartphones in the past three months. Smartphone penetration rose from 52 percent to 57 percent during this period, while tablet penetration increased from 35 percent to 53 percent of Internet households. Tablets are the fastest growing segment and Apple continues to dominate the tablet market.

Perhaps families still are sitting down for communal meals or game night, except now, they search for recipes on their iPad and play Words with Friends instead of Scrabble.（source：venturebeat）