Rovio, the Finnish company that became an international sensation overnight when the launched the Angry Birds franchise back in 2009, has launched a sequel called Angry Birds Space. Now there have been other versions of Angry Birds released over the past few years, but they’ve all been nothing more than themed versions. One for Halloween, one for Christmas, one that tied into the film Rio. Angry Birds Space however, it’s genuinely new because it includes gravitational fields on top of the traditional gameplay elements. You can buy the game on iOS, and on Android, but what about Windows Phone?
“We’re the No. 1 app in the Windows Phone app store, but it’s a big undertaking to support it, and you have to completely rewrite the application. If you look at activations, Apple’s iOS and Android are clearly bigger than any other platform. We want to be on all screens, but we have to consider the cost of supplying the smaller platforms. With Windows Phone it’s a lot of work to technically support it.” – Peter Vesterbacka, Chief Marketing Officer at Rovio
Now that doesn’t mean Angry Birds Space isn’t coming to Windows Phone. In a Reuters piece published shortly after the quote above hit the internet, Rovio’s CEO, Mikael Hed, said: “We are working towards getting Angry Birds Space to WP7.” The thing is, he didn’t specify a date, and that’s the problem. If Rovio of all companies doesn’t consider Windows Phone a priority, why should other app vendors?
As for the technical complexity, this is because of Microsoft’s decision to make Windows Phone game development use the same tools that were developed for the XBOX, specifically XNA. This will change once Microsoft releases Windows Phone 8, which will be based on Windows 8, which will enable developers to port their games from Windows to Windows Phone using very little effort.
Yet another reason why we recommend you stay away from Windows Phone until Q4 2012.