1）据serkantoto报道，日本热门手机游戏《Puzzle & Dragons》每月销售额达6200-8600万美元。

据GungHo公司所称，这款游戏目前在日本注册用户已达1200万（但并未消透露游戏海外用户规模），历时15天新增100万用户。

Puzzle & Dragons(from serkantoto)

P&D users(from serkantoto)

2）International Data Corporation最新数据显示，2013年第一季度（截止3月31日）PC出货量同比上年下降13.9%（IDC原先预测的降幅为7.7%）。

美国市场PC出货量降幅尤其明显，该季度出货量降至1420万部，这是自2006年第一季度以来的最低点。美国PC出货量在过去10个季度中有9个季度处于下降状态。

tablet vs pc(from tecnoparis.cl)

IDC指出消费者正在转向智能手机和平板电脑，高成本与组件供应情况导致PC行业采用触屏技术的选择受阻，另外Windows 8的低支持率也是PC市场发展缓慢的原因之一。

3）IDC最近报告指出，2012年美国移动广告投入达45亿美元，增长88%，数字广告市场份额所占比例为11%（2011年为7%）；预计2013年移动广告投入将达70亿美元，增幅为55-65%。

Facebook和The Weather Channelare等发行商已成为主流品牌广告投入渠道，在2012年移动展示式广告投入中占比52%（2011年占比39%）。

Facebook(from topnews.in)

在所有发行商中Facebook最为领先，所占广告投入达2.34亿美元，Pandora占2.29亿美元，Twitter占1.17亿美元；谷歌则是2.43亿美元，Millennial占1.51亿美元，苹果则是1.25亿美元。

检索广告仍是主导广告类型，占比61%，展示性广告市场份额达39%，同比上年增长8%。

4）据venturebeat报道，手机游戏公司MinoMonsters同名游戏《MinoMonsters》目前在苹果App Store位居收益榜单第75名，玩家超过250万，收益达数百万美元。

minomonsters(from shortandsweetreviews)

该公司创始人及首席执行官Josh Buckley日前宣布收购一家小型HTML5游戏公司，并签署了一项儿童书合作协议，今后将开始向玩具、集换卡片、电视、电影等领域推出授权合作，并于下周通过YouTube播放动画片。Buckley称他们正致力于打造全球最大的儿童品牌之一。

5）据gamasutra报道，法国发行商育碧日前宣布收购德国工作室Related Designs（游戏邦注：其代表作包括PC战略游戏《Anno》系列，包括《Anno 1404》、《Anno 2070》）。

anno_1404(from bit-tech.net)

Related Design这个65人团队仍将继续开发免费网页MMO游戏《MMO Might & Magic Heroes Online》，未来还将与育碧旗下的Blue Byte团队合作开发新游戏。

育碧此前已经掌握Related Designs公司30%的股份，这次收购了后者剩余的70%股份，但并未透露具体成交金额。

6）据gamasutra报道，战略游戏公司Stardock首席执行官Brad Wardell最近表示，他认为战略游戏在过去几年中并没有发挥创新。

在他看来，最近几年确有一些优秀的战略游戏面世，但这类游戏的创新性却日益退化，不过这并非缺乏游戏设计或创新思维的表现，而应归咎于微软没有为Windows XP用户提供DirectX 10技术支持的决策。

Brad Wardell(from destructoid.com)

他称在硬件设备停止支持32位操作系统的情况下，微软却仍在销售32位版本的Windows，这极大制约了PC游戏的开发空间。

为此游戏开发者不得不局限于Directx 9技术，以及过去10年的2GB内存。虽然这并未损害第一人称射击游戏（游戏邦注：它们一次只需管理少量游戏对象）的发展，但却对其他游戏题材造成了极大负面影响。

DirectX 11允许工作室将着色器反齿锯技术发挥到极致，并降低开发性能需求。所幸游戏支持32位操作系统的时代即将走向终结，DirectX 10也正在成为游戏技术支持的最低标准。

7）据《华尔街日报》报道，微软正在开发基于Windows 8的Surface平板电脑，其中包括7英寸规格的设备，以便与基于Android的谷歌Nexus 7、亚马逊Kindle Fire、三星Galaxy Tab 2和苹果iPad Mini角逐市场。（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）Puzzle & Dragons Adds Another Million Players, Now At 12 Million

by Dr. Serkan Toto

The hype around Japan’s most popular mobile game Puzzle & Dragons, which is estimated to generate a mind-blowing US$62-86 million per month (or more) in sales, continues.

According to maker GungHo, the RPG/puzzle hybrid now boasts 12 million registered players in Japan (the company doesn’t say how many users the game has abroad).

It took Puzzle & Dragons a total of 15 days to go from eleven to twelve million users, as can be seen in this chart from Japanese news site Social Game Info:

One day after the game hit 11 million users, on March 26, GungHo started a new TV ad campaign.

What’s interesting about Puzzle & Dragons is that this is the tenth time in a row the title attracted one million users in less than 3 weeks: this development started in October last year, just after the Android version was released and GungHo started advertising the game on TV for the first time.（source：serkantoto）

2）PC hardware shipments see worst decline ever as mobile reigns

By Mike Rose

While PC software is making headway in the game industry thanks to digital sales, hardware sales continue to decline. Worldwide shipments of PCs saw the greatest decline ever last quarter, also marking consecutive declines of PC shipments for the last four quarters.

According to data from the International Data Corporation, for the quarter ended March 31, 2013, PC shipments were down 13.9 percent year-over-year, far worse than the IDC’s 7.7 percent decline forecast.

The U.S. in particular saw a dismal quarter, with quarterly shipments dropping to 14.2 million — their lowest since the first quarter of 2006. PC shipments in the U.S. have declined during nine of the last ten fiscal quarters.

The organization says that tablets and smartphones are diverting consumer spending, and that the PC industry’s efforts to offer touch-capable options have been hampered by high costs and poor component supplies.

The weak reception for Windows 8 also caused part of this decline, says the IDC, and has in fact caused the PC market to slow down, rather than boosting it.

“The PC industry is struggling to identify innovations that differentiate PCs from other products and inspire consumers to buy,” reads the report, “and instead is meeting significant resistance to changes perceived as cumbersome or costly.” （source：gamasutra）

3）IDC: Publishers dominate US mobile display ad spend, not ad networks

by Zen Terrelonge

IDC has observed trends in the American mobile ad space to find publishers like Facebook and The Weather Channelare now major considerations for brands’ marketing strategies.

Indeed, publishers secured 52 per cent of the mobile display ad spend in 2012, up from 39 per cent in 2011, which puts them ahead of traditional ad networks such as Google and Millennial Media.

Facebook dominated the publishers to secure $234m, followed by Pandora on $229 and Twitter on $117m. Comparatively, Google bagged $243m, with Millennial on $151m and Apple on $125m.

Search ads are still the most dominant form of advertising with 61 per cent, but the display ad share hit 39 per cent, an eight per cent rise year-on-year.

Overall, mobile ad spending in the US rose by 88 per cent in 2012 to hit $4.5 billion, while market share within all digital advertising hit 11 per cent for the year, up from seven per cent in 2011. IDC predicts a 55-65 per cent growth rate for 2013 to generate around $7 billion.

Karsten Weide, VP of media & entertainment at IDC, said: “Mobile ad networks are losing market share to publishers, and we expect them to lose even more going forward. Networks, especially independent ones, are entering a difficult phase, in which, with an ever smaller share of revenue, they’ll have to compete with publishers, which will only grow in strength.”

In other news, IAB revealed yesterday that UK mobile ad spending had crossed the half billion pounds mark.（source：mobile-ent）

4）21 year-old CEO aims to be the ‘next Disney,’ starting with an iPhone game

Rebecca Grant

What’s cute, furry, and iOS all over? MinoMonsters!

MinoMonsters is a mobile gaming startup that released major updates to its game today and shared some news surrounding the company’s progress. MinoMonsters is a Pokémon-inspired game in which players collect, train, and battle “minos.” The popular app is No. 75 on the top grossing charts in the Apple App Store, now has more than 2.5 million players, and generates millions in revenue.

Today, MinoMonsters also announced that it acquired a small HTML5 gaming startup, signed a kids’ book deal to help transform into a bigger brand, and is now under representation of WME,
one of Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies. Founder and CEO Josh Buckley said that the company is starting to ramp up their licensing into toys, trading cards, TV, movies, and so on … and next week, MinoMonsters will launch animated shows on YouTube.

“We’re creating one of the biggest kids brands in the world,” Buckley said in an email. “Big brands used to start out as TV shows or movies; however, now the model is changing.

Hollywood is approaching us. The next Disney is going to start out as a character-driven mobile game, and we’re at the forefront.”

Buckley went through Y Combinator at the age of 18, the youngest founder in the program at the time. After graduating from the spring 2011 class, he raised $2 million from Andreessen

Horowitz, SV Angel, General Catalyst, Ignition Partners, and Alexis Ohanian.

This whiz kid from Kent, England began freelance programming at the age of 11. He built a series of applications and sold Menewsha, a community for people to create avatars, for six figures

when he was just 15 years old. He then became a young angel investors and went on to create MinoMonsters in 2010. His ultimate vision is to be a cross-channel brand that extends beyond the gaming world.

At first, MinoMonsters was paid-for download, but now it is free with the addition of in-app purchases. Buckley also changed the focus of the game away from an exploration to battle. The new update lets players battle anybody in the world, and new animations will be released next week.（source：venturebeat）

5）Ubisoft invests in free-to-play, acquiring Anno developer

By Kris Graft

Ubisoft is now full owner of one of Germany’s best game developers.

The French publisher today said it acquired the remaining stake in German studio Related Designs, the company behind the well-regarded Anno series of PC strategy games, including Anno 1404 and Anno 2070 (pictured).

While Related Designs is best know for its PC strategy games, the buy shows Ubisoft’s willingness to invest in the free-to-play online game sector. Related Designs’ 65-person staff will continue development of the free-to-play browser MMO Might & Magic Heroes Online, and will also work on future titles with Blue Byte, the Ubisoft-owned studio that works on the Settlers franchise.

Ubisoft already had a 30 percent stake in Related Designs, and this most recent transaction was for the remaining 70 percent. Ubisoft did not disclose the purchase amount.

Blue Byte managing director Odile Limpach said he hopes Might & Magic Heroes Online will “become a leading free-to-play title for Ubisoft.” （source：gamasutra）

6）DirectX9: Has this been holding back PC strategy game innovation?

By Mike Rose

“The problem stems from a catastrophic decision made at Microsoft: not giving DirectX 10 to Windows XP users.”

- Brad Wardell, CEO of strategy game specialist Stardock, explains why he think strategy games have been held back over the last few years.

The Stardock founder says in the company’s 2012 report [PDF] that strategy games in recent times have been a mixed blessing.

“There have been some great titles released,” he says, “but the innovation in strategy games has been diminishing. This is not the result of a lack of game design or inventive thinking.”

He says it comes down to Microsoft’s decision not to supply Windows XP users with DirectX 10 as standard, instead leaving them with DirectX 9 support.

“As a corollary, Microsoft continuing to sell 32-bit versions of Windows well after the hardware stopped being natively 32-bit has held back PC game development immensely,” he continues.

“Game developers have been stuck with DirectX 9 and 2GB of memory for the past decade. While this hasn’t harmed first person shooters (they only have to manage a handful of objects at once), it has been poisonous to other genres.”

Meanwhile, DirectX 11 allows studios to go crazy with the shader anti-aliasing, says Wardell, and lowers the development capability requirements on having a multi-core-based simulation.

“There are whole classes of games waiting to be made that require these kinds of advances,” he adds. “Luckily, after a decade-long wait, we are nearing critical mass. The days of games supporting 32-bit OSes is, thankfully, coming to an end. DirectX 10 as a minimum requirement has also arrived.” （source：gamasutra）

7）Microsoft Reportedly Working On 7″ Surface Tablet As PC Market Slumps To Four-Year Low

Natasha Lomas

According to a report in the WSJ, Microsoft is working on a new line-up of its Windows 8-powered Surface tablets that includes a seven inch version of the slate. This small form factor size would enable Microsoft to compete with the likes of the Android-powered Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, as well as Apple’s iOS-based iPad Mini.

The paper quotes a person familiar with the situation saying that while 7-inch tablets were not part of Microsoft’s product plans last year  company executives have realised they need to respond to the growth and popularity of small slates. Which boils down to Redmond is having to play catch up yet again.（source：techcrunch）