As far as mobile gaming goes, Android has been fighting an uphill battle, but Google’s make a concentrated effort at the next Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, which covers all the major platforms, including mobile. To win the hearts and minds of attendees, Google’s giving out free droid and Nexus One handsets to paid, early bird registrants attending the Mobile, iPhone, or Indie Games Summits. That’s a pretty sweet deal, especially considering a serious bottleneck for many smaller developers is the simple cost of testing hardware. Getting some of the latest and greatest Android hardware ensures that at least they’ll have the option to work with the platform. iPhone remains the top dog of all mobile app sales, let alone gaming – it’ll be a hard sell for those who have already made their fortunes on iTunes, but those shops who would rather not deal with that much competition might be able to sooner carve out a reputation on Android…
If you’re a developer in San Francisco, you can find out more about the free Android phone promo at GDC here.
[via Android Dev Blog]