1）据pocketgamer报道，市场分析公司Nick Parker最近发布的游戏行业趋势图表显示，云游戏可能要到2014年才会产生一定规模的收益，盒装游戏及在线游戏仍将长时间占据行业主流地位，由此可见之前的行业媒体夸大了云游戏的影响力。

global sales of games software(from nick parker)

2）据techcrunch报道，Rovio首席执行官Mikael Hed在最近采访中透露公司将于今年春季推出《愤怒的小鸟》系列动画短片，但值得注意的是，Rovio并不会像其他内容制造商一样依靠传统电视频道播映这些动画片，而是通过Rovio自身的渠道来发布，并计划将来推出完整版本的《愤怒的小鸟》电影。

观察者据此推测Rovio有可能通过其自身的应用向智能手机、智能TV平台发布这些短片。

angry-birds-cartoons-(from favim.com)

Roivo在1月份用户已达2.6亿，其游戏遍及iOS、Android、Kindle Fire、Mac、Windows 8和Windows Phone平台。

3）ABI Research最新报告预测，2013年底全球将有14亿部智能手机投入使用，年增长率为44%（略低于2012年时的45%），其中有7.98亿部为Android手机，2.94亿部为iOS设备，4500万部为Windows Phone设备，2000万部BlackBerry 10手机。

mobile-phones(from digitaltrends)

Android在全球用户市场份额为57%（但远低于去年第三季度时的70%），iOS份额为21%，Windows Phone仅占比3%。

从平板电脑来看，2013年将有2.68亿部平板电脑投入使用，其中iOS占比62%，Android占比28%。

4）尼尔森最新数据显示，有80%拉美用户期待移动设备制造商发布新产品，而全球用户的这一平均比例仅为63%（游戏邦注：尼尔森调查数据取自58个国家2.9万名在线受访者样本）。

之前有报告指出，有78%英国用户认为苹果过于频繁发布更新产品（游戏邦注：例如苹果在发布iPad 3之后，仅隔7个月就发布了iPad 4，后来仅隔数月又推出了128GB的iPad 4）。与此同时，拉美用户对这些产品的消费意愿高达56%，而欧洲用户的这一比例仅为28%，北美用户也仅为31%；欧洲仅有23%用户愿意购买新产品，北美用户的这一比例仅为29%。

New product desire(from nielsen)

品牌也是这些消费者购买产品的重要考虑因素，有26%亚太受访者信赖大公司品牌甚于较不知名的本土品牌，而全球用户的这一比例仅为23%。而北美却有47%用户推崇本土品牌甚于国际品牌，支持国际品牌的用户比例则是40%。

5）Supergiant Games联合创始人及工作室主管Amir Rao在最近DICE Sumit大会上分享了将《Bastion》移植到其他平台的经验。

bastion-ios(from forbes.com)

他称团队将这款游戏从Xbox平台移植到PC，之后又移植到智能手机和平板电脑，工作室给予团队大量时间考虑其中的棘手问题（例如将大量的主机及PC控制方式转变成触屏模式）。他们为自己设定了游戏“只可用一只手操作”这个“硬性限制条件”，摆脱了虚拟游戏控制板这一思维，以便让游戏在平板电脑上呈现玩家所需要的游戏体验。

6）据serkantoto报道，NHN Japan公司日前宣布将一分为二，划分成运营商LINE以及NHN这两个不同的子公司，从而区分游戏与网络服务这两个业务。

NHN-japan(from nikkan.co.jp)

NHN Japan称公司游戏部门将以“Hangame Corp.”这一暂定名称运营，主要面向LINE Game平台研发智能手机和PC游戏，其他业务均划入“LINE Corp.”的管辖范围，例如通信应用LINE、网络内容聚合服务Naver Matome以及门户网站Liverdoor。首席执行官Akira Morikawa在LINE Corp和Hangame Corp.这两家公司的角色仍然不变。

值得注意的是，LINE Japan还将针对国际市场在日本成立第三个公司“LINE Plus Corp.”（暂定名），这家公司将有60%由LINE Corp.控股，40%由NHN韩国公司控股，观察者认为这种跨国管理举措可能将成为阻碍LINE成为进一步扩大国际影响力的绊脚石。

7）Pocketgamer日前发布的中国移动游戏行业信息图表显示，2013年初中国移动游戏玩家已达1.92亿，将在今年首次超过PC游戏玩家规模（欧洲5大国的移动游戏玩家为7200万，而美国这一数据则是4800万）。

72%中国手机运行Android操作系统；2012年第二季度，有57%的移动广告印象来自Android设备；2012年亚洲移动广告投入为43亿美元，美国则是31亿美元，欧洲是16亿美元，亚洲已是全球最大的移动广告地区，中国是其中重要的发展动力。

游戏内置广告在中国点击率达1.5%，2012年中旬有23%中国移动广告属于游戏内嵌广告，预计2013年中国移动广告投入将达16亿美元。

2011年9月，免费增值模式在中国iOS市场收益中占比42%，2012年3月占比56%，2012年9月占比71%。

在中国iOS市场排名前列的IAP内容，售价远高于西方市场。从iOS营收前十名榜单最热门IAP的平均售价来看，美国售价5.89美元，英国为6.62美元，中国为20.95美元。

china mobile game market(from pocketgamer)

（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）Chart of the Week: The hard value of cloud gaming services predicted

Fluffy around the edges?

by Jon Jordan

It’s all in the cloud. That’s what they tell us these days.

But let’s try to put some numbers to the increasingly airy-fairy concept.

As argued in a keynote at Mobile Games Forum a couple of week ago – by Microsoft’s CTO for cloud services, Rob Fraser – it seems the impact of the cloud can be over-exaggerated, especially by us journalists.

Slice of life

If we look at this graph of the size of the entire games industry from 1995 to predicted 2017 – as created by market analyst Nick Parker – the green slice due directly from cloud services such as streaming games is not large.

It’s not until 2014 that cloud gaming is generating sizeable revenue.

Of course, both boxed games and online/mobile will be impacted by cloud services, in terms of synced game states and downloaded content, but that’s not the cutting-edge of the cloud.

Still, as OnLive has demonstrated, going 100 percent cloud is much harder than its fluffy exterior suggests.（source：pocketgamer）

2）Angry Birds Cartoons Will Launch In Spring But Probably Not On TV

Jordan Crook

Rovio’s Angry Birds is a brand we all recognize, but the Finnish gaming company is finally moving past games and merchandise to push short animated cartoons to the masses.

Rovio’s CEO Mikael Hed said in an interview in Helsinki that Rovio will launch a series of short, cartoon-style episodes featuring everyone’s favorite destructive birds (and probably a few piggies) in the spring.

It was originally reported last year that Rovio would have these ultra-short cartoons ready to go by fall of 2012. Clearly that didn’t happen, but perhaps it was because Rovio is thinking outside the box where distribution is concerned.

“The content itself is the channel,” said Mr. Hed. “We have become the channel.”

Metaphysics aside, he has a great point. Rovio enjoys 260 million users as of January, with the Angry Birds brand filtering into countries all over the world on a number of various platforms, including iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Mac, Windows 8, and Windows Phone.

Knowing the breadth of the user base and Rovio’s background as a gaming company (as opposed to a television network), Mr. Hed clarified that the distribution of this new animated series will be a bit unorthodox. “Previously content creators were reliant on others who had the channel,” he explained.

Hed suggested that this reliance wouldn’t be the case with Rovio. That essentially rules out a broadcast network, which would hurt Rovio’s outstanding margins. Of course, the company could go through YouTube or some other internet channel, but they wouldn’t be able to leverage their user base to watch all these animations.

Instead, Hed’s comments suggest that the animations will be pushed through Rovio’s own channel, which he said himself is “the content.” This leads us to believe that Rovio may even be planning on distributing its animations through the apps themselves, pushing them to both smartphones and smart TVs.

Rovio has been making headway in the animation business since its 2011 acquisition of Kombo Animation, and the WSJ reports that it’s animation team has tripled since then to 70 people.

You can get a feel for Rovio’s animation style here, where the company has a handful of various cinematic trailers for games like Bad Piggies and Angry Birds Star Wars.

Further down the line, Rovio has plans for a full-length Angry Birds feature film.（source：techcrunch）

3）800 million Android smartphones, 300 million iPhones in active use by December 2013, study says

John Koetsier

By the end of this current year, 1.4 billion smartphones will be in use: 798 million of them will run Android, 294 million will run Apple’s iOS, and 45 million will run Windows Phone, according to a new study by ABI Research.

The ABI study factors in an annual smartphone growth rate of 44 percent for 2013, which is just ever-so-slightly down from 2012′s 45 percent but is still a torrid pace. ABI also predicts that 20 million BlackBerry 10 phones will be in active use at year-end.

The result of that growth — and a push for share by Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 — is a global customer market share of 57 percent for Android, 21 percent of iOS, and 3 percent for Windows Phone. Which sounds big for Android, but is actually significantly down from its third-quarter 2012 performance, in which Android captured almost 70 percent global market share.

It’s also a significant divergence in the global numbers from U.S-specific sales, which show Apple leading the market with over 50 percent share in the last quarter thanks largely to both new users and older models of iPhones.

But perhaps the most startling prediction? The bit players will start to become serious contenders again, ABI says.

“2013 should be seen as relative success for both Microsoft and BlackBerry,” analyst Aapo Markkanen said in a statement. “For the end of the year, we expect there to be 45 million Windows Phone handsets in use, with BlackBerry 10 holding an installed base of close to 20 million. Microsoft will also have 5.5 million Windows-powered tablets to show for it.”

For tablets, Markkanen is predicting continued hyper-growth: 125 percent, which will result in 268 million tablets in use. Sixty-two percent will iOS, he says, and 28 percent will run Android.（source：venturebeat）

4）Latin Americans love new products more than any other nationality

by Zen Terrelonge

New data from Nielsen shows that Latin Americans are hungrier for new product releases more than any other nationality. Indeed, 80 per cent of regional respondents like it when OEMs release new products, compared to the 63 per cent global average.

We’ve previously reported that 78 per cent of Brits believe Apple updates its products too often. They’ve got a point, given that the brand recently revealed a 128GB iPad 4 just a few months after the original iPad 4, which came seven months after the iPad 3 to anger existing owners.

Meanwhile, 56 per cent of Latin Americans are also willing to pay premium prices for items, compared to just 28 per cent of Europeans and 31 per cent of North Americans. Europeans and North Americans are reluctant to buy brand new products, with just 23 per cent and 29 per cent willing to do so, respectively.

Brand status proves to be a considering factor too, with 26 per cent of Asia-Pacific respondents saying they prefer to purchase large global brands over lesser-known local companies, which is more than the 23 per cent global average. 47 per cent of North Americans, however, show the most devotion to local brands over global ones, compared with 40 per cent globally.

Therese Glennon, MD of innovation, brand & social practices, Nielsen Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Africa, said: “In Asia, the preference for global brands versus local brands is two-fold.

Although local brands are increasingly becoming premium, perception around quality remains an issue.

“Additionally, much of the positive sentiment in Asia toward global brands is rooted in Asian consumers’ perception around the status that ownership of global products provides. Over time, this is expected to change as local brands match global brands in premium positioning and high quality offerings.”

The data was taken from more that 29,000 online respondents from 58 countries.（source：mobile-ent）

5）Bastion’s argument for doing away with cross-platform development

By Simon Carless

In a talk at the DICE Summit on Wednesday, Supergiant Games co-founder and studio director Amir Rao (Bastion) talked about the year-plus his team spent taking Bastion to different platforms.

Along the way, he urged the audience to get away from the concept of simultaneous ‘ports’ and ‘lead SKU’ and towards a thoughtful, non-parallel multi-platform development process.

Having worked with mixed success on simultaneously shipping PC and console games in the Command & Conquer series at Electronic Arts, Rao decided that in transitioning Bastion to new platforms, they would use a full team, not simultaneously ship, and take the time to understand the new audiences and advantages of new platforms.

Rao gave the example of Plants Vs Zombies, which he loved and bought on multiple sequential platforms, from PC through Xbox to iOS, and he feels like many people rebought on the new platforms.

In Bastion’s case, the team went from Xbox to PC to tablet and smartphone, and gave the core original team plenty of time to think through the tricky issues, like taking a multitude of console and PC controls to touch.

By putting a “hard constraint” on themselves that the game be playable only with one hand, the team gave themselves a really tricky goal, but managed to do it, by having a “touch to run” mechanic. They stayed away from the virtual game pad because they wanted an experience that truly felt like it was made for the tablet, rather than hacked across, and the extra time was worth it

The point of sim-shipping, Rao suspects, is meant to be to “maximize the lightning rod of attention paid,” but he then showcases the features, attention and bundles that Bastion got by not doing this. In fact, 90% of the 1.7 million copies sold of Bastion were after its first month on sale.

So, by solving the interface problems across multiple devices serially, Bastion has succeeded in a kind of video game “world tour” across separate platforms and times.

Concluding, Rao suggests that you can make an entire business model around giving fans what they want, on the platforms they want it on – “but what they don’t want is a bad version of the game” on their particular platform. Your fans want you to take the “same creative energy” that went into the original game to re-imagining it to new platforms. （source：gamasutra）

6）“LINE Corp.”: NHN Japan Spins Off LINE Into Separate Company

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Big shake-up at Tokyo-based NHN Japan today: the LINE operator and Japanese subsidiary of Korean web powerhouse NHN is splitting up into 2 different companies.

The basic idea is to separate the gaming from the web service business.

NHN Japan says that going forward its gaming section will operate under “Hangame Corp.” (tentative). The new entity will produce games for smartphones and the PC and also provide content for the LINE Game platform, both for the Japanese and international game markets.

All other activities will be under control of the so-called “LINE Corp.” (tentative): mega-popular communication app LINE, web content aggregation service Naver Matome, and web portal Livedoor.

What’s interesting is that for LINE’s international business, NHN Japan decided to set up a third company, namely “LINE Plus Corp.” (tentative), in Japan.

What’s worrisome is that this entity will be just 60% controlled by LINE Corp. and 40% controlled by NHN in Korea: this kind of cross-border arrangement is one main factor I always thought will ultimately prevent LINE from becoming a bigger global success than it already is.

NHN Japan says the split is supposed to help accelerate product development going forward and make the company as a whole more flexible and agile. CEO Akira Morikawa will maintain its role at both LINE Corp. and Hangame Corp.

A concrete date for the company split hasn’t been set yet.（source：serkantoto）