A tweet by Rovio Mobile suggests its popular mobile game, Angry Birds, may be landing on Windows Phone 7 handsets in the near future. The tweet points to an announcement coming on Angry Birds Day, a fan-proclaimed event with worldwide meet-ups slated for December 11th. On that date, Rovio says it may provide an update on its current plans for WP7.
The fact that Rovio may introduce a Windows Phone version is slightly surprising as Microsoft and Rovio have a bumpy history. The software giant made a major gaffe when it publicized Angry Birds on its Windows Phone website without Rovio’s permission. Once the promotion was discovered, the gaming software company responded with a series of slightly angry tweets that confirmed “We have NOT committed to doing a Windows Phone 7 version,” and put Microsoft on the spot by stating “Microsoft put the Angry Birds icon on their site without our permission.”
The two companies have apparently smoothed things over, a truce that may have been helped along by some cash from Microsoft. Though Rovio has not disclosed any compensation, Microsoft has used its large war chest of cash to pay developers for writing applications that run on its nascent mobile platform. In the end, the “why” and “how” is irrelevant to owners who will be happy just to have their beloved birds on their Windows Phone.