Hot Five

The PG.biz Hot Five: Nintendo's phone dilemma, Android will eat itself, and Union wants to make Unity developers millionaires

Last week's top five stories

The PG.biz Hot Five: Nintendo's phone dilemma, Android will eat itself, and Union wants to make Unity developers millionaires
Welcome to PocketGamer.biz's weekly rundown of the stories clocking up the hits, picking up the click-throughs and generally keeping the advertisers happy by serving up page views.

Or, if you'd prefer, the top five stories currently dominating our readers' attention.

Each week, we'll be counting down the biggest news from the previous seven days, giving just a glimpse of the industry's big issues, from five to one.



What ratios tell us about the relative performance of EA-Gameloft, Gamevil-Com2uS and DeNA-GREE

Rivalry is one of the most powerful motivational forces - just ask fans of Manchester United and City, or the CEOs of Coca-Cola and PepisCo.

And so it is in the mobile gaming space, which is why I took some time out to compare the earnings of three sets of rivals. Mobile publishers EA and Gameloft have been locked into a quarterly race to be the largest western mobile publisher for years. Gameloft got close in 2010 but EA's recent acquisitions seem likely to give it the lead for the foreseeable future.

There's a similar, if much smaller by revenue, tug of war in Korea between Com2uS - once the biggest - but now overtaken by Gamevil. While Japanese giants DeNA-GREE rivalry has gone global as they build out their respectively platforms worldwide and transition to smartphones.

Of course, the underlying good news is all these companies are profitable.

Click here to read more.



PS Vita dev kit priced at a 'very affordable' €1,900

With much debate over the viability of standalone portal consoles, thanks to the poor sales of Nintendo's 3DS, all eyes are now on Sony's PS Vita.

At Gamescom, the company revealed the cost of development kit for the console would be €1,900, something it described as 'very affordable'.

For example, the initial price of kits for PS2 and PS3 were €20,000, while PSP dev kits were €15,000 at launch, though those prices have dropped significantly since.

Whether that's a main barrier to indies making games of the platform remains to be seen however, with issues such as install base and the flexibility of pricing methods likely to be equally significant.
Click here to read more.



We want to help Unity devs make $20,000+ of extra revenue per platform says Union's Bruning

Unity's Union program provides developers with the ability to get their games ported over to and released onto platforms not officially supported by the technology.

To-date these include Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play and soon RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. At GDC Europe, Union's developer relations director Brian Bruning spoke about other opportunities, saying there were five more deals ongoing, including tablets, smartphones and set top boxes.

However, the headline was that he expected that games accepted onto the program would make at least $20,000 per platform. "I want to hand over a $1 million cheque to a developer," he said.
Click here to read more.



Android will eat itself: Why Google-Motorola deal is great news for Nokia

In the midst of GDC Europe, the news broke that Google was buying Motorola for $12.5 billion in cash.

Cue an off-the-cuff opinion piece, considering what the knock-on impact would be for companies such as Sony Ericsson, HTC and to a lesser extent Samsung, who are already heavily committed to Android, and now have to compete with a rival that has 'official status'.

My conclusion - Nokia's decision to pick Windows Phone as its foundation for future devices is looking pretty smart.
Click here to read more.Mario perfect for mobile, but developers question whether now is the right time for Nintendo's smartphone assault



Our most popular news of the week concerned the ongoing rumblings as Nintendo is forced to consider a world in which very cheap or free games run without need for a dedicated portable console.

Of course, its problem is two-fold. Should it be more aggressive in terms of allowing developers to release very cheap or free games on its existing portables such as 3DS, or should it change its corporate philosophy wholesale and start developing for hardware that it doesn't control?

In this article, developers give their opinions. All we know, is this will run and run, and Nintendo will eventually release games for phones. Will they be Nintendo-branded phones is the next question?
Click here to read more.

Until next week, Pocket Gamer pickers...
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Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.