PocketGamer.biz Week That Was: Microsoft's Window Phone 7.8 silence, Humble Bundles and the Midlands in profile

The past 7 days in bite-sized portions

In this week's edition of the PocketGamer.biz Mobile Gaming Mavens, our panel of industry luminaries discuss what's in store for the year ahead.

On some points, there is a general consensus.

Android's growth will continue and Apple's lead will narrow considerably. As such, cross-platform development is likely to become increasingly common.

The cost of development may increase as production values rise, too, and the costs associated with marketing and user acquisition are likely to continue to skyrocket.

On other points, though, our experts disagreed. Brian Robbins of Riptide Games reckoned that "it's going to be the year that we start to see Sony and Microsoft experience a very serious decline in the traditional console space, largely driven by mobile."

Dimoso's John Ozimek, however, had a different view. "Nobody is suddenly going to say "this mobile version of Call of Duty is much better than on PS3, I'll never buy another console game," he argued.

And in the face of widespread pessimism from fellow mavens, GRL Games' Graeme Devine was hopeful that 2013 could be the year that discovery is solved in mobile gaming.

"Somewhere, someone is working on AppStore 2.0, the app store that fixes some of the discovery issues we have with ALL media," he hoped.

"When we see that it will be shockingly obvious and easy to use,"

Anyway, that's quite enough looking forward. Instead, let's look back at the last seven days on PocketGamer.biz.

Platform wars

• Apple cuts its orders for iPhone 5 components, reportedly in response to weaker-than-expected demand. 
• CrowdStar's head of global business development explains how the company is always "looking ahead" to the next big thing, and right now, that's Windows Phone 8. 
• Samsung announces its Galaxy S III handset has surpassed 40 million sales worldwide since its launch in May 2012. 
• Now that Windows Phone 7 has been cast adrift, PocketGamer.biz editor Keith Andrew asks: Why has Microsoft gone silent on Windows Phone 7.8? 
• Finally, Microsoft breaks its silence, confirming that the Windows Phone 7.8 update is complete – it's just waiting for individual manufacturers to push it out. 

Monetisation

• New PocketGamer.biz contributor Thomas Whitehead charts the rise of the Humble Bundle as a new model for indie publishing. 
• In this week's edition of the Charticle, we examine the growth of Russian casual publisher G5 Entertainment, one of the top performing industry shares of 2012. 
• Mobile marketing and monetisation specialist W3i examines the potential of Windows 8 as a venue for freemium games. 

Funding, start ups and acquisitions

• Former Funzio VP Jamil Moledina unveils his new start up studio, Wormhole Games, which will follow Supercell's 'tablet first' approach to development. 
• In 2012, real rewards network Kiip closed a funding round worth $11 million, which global advertising agency Interpublic participated in. Now the two companies announce a strategic partnership. 
• San Francisco Thumper Studios explains its plan to extend With Friends gameplay to the friends you haven't made yet. 
• App discovery platform AppGratis secures £13.5 million in Series A funding round – a move that CEO and self-proclaimed 'bootstrap evangelist' Simon Dawlat defended on the firm's blog.

Industry voices

• The PocketGamer.biz Mobile Gaming Mavens make their predictions for the year ahead, including rosy futures, Android uprisings and the death of video games. 
• Across two guest columns, senior artists from Full Fat show PocketGamer.biz the art of Agent Dash – and how its design was informed by 2D concept and 3D implementation.
• PocketGamer.biz US correspondent Rob LeFebvre argues that Apple will always put consumers ahead of developers – and that could actually be no bad thing for all concerned. 
• ZeptoLab gives PocketGamer.biz the inside story on the making of Pudding Monsters. 
• Pocket Gamer editor-in-chief Kristan Reed argues that the likes of Joe Danger Touch and Rayman Jungle Run prove that smart gaming is no longer the games industry's "idiot cousin". 
• In the latest Best of British column, Grey Alien Games' Jake Birkett explores the pros and cons of touchscreen controls. 

Global Games: The Midlands

• Kicking off our spotlight on the mobile games industry in central England, Joseph Barron outlines the region's rich gaming heritage. 
• Next up in our series, Kwalee CEO David Darling gives us his take on the Midlands, explaining how Codemasters' success created a development hotspot. 
• Supersonic Software, for instance, was founded by a former Codemasters employee, and found international success collaborating with the BBC on a Top Gear mobile game. 
• Finally, we talk to Full Fat's creative director Ashley Routledge, who explains why the studio has made its home in the Midlands and his thoughts on the region's future. 

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