PocketGamer.biz review of 2008: November

Latest in our series of posts harking back to the key mobile games industry stories of 2008.

November started with some stats on N-Gage being released, belatedly, after Nokia's Games Summit. It included details of geographic spread, the number of repeat purchases, and promises of eight new N-Gage handsets in the first half of 2009.

It was also quarterly results season, with Gameloft revealing Q3 revenues of €26.2 million and also that the iPhone App Store was now its single largest sales channel, Glu announcing Q3 revenues of $23.9 million (but a whopping net loss), and THQ Wireless revealing Q3 revenues of $6.2 million.

EA Mobile had a mixed month, with a corporate reorganisation spurred by the resignation of EA's Casual Entertainment boss Kathy Vrabeck, but also the announcement of some innovative mobile-to-console connectivity in its Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 game.

November was the month that Vivendi Games Mobile finally closed its doors, with a letter to partners confirming what had been widely rumoured for months. It seemed newly-merged parent company Activision Blizzard saw no need to keep mobile games in-house.

iPhone continued to evolve apace as a gaming platform, with the entry into the App Store of social games firm Zynga, joining its rival SGN. Meanwhile, it was around now that Apple made a determined push to pitch iPhone and iPod touch as genuine handheld rivals to DS and PSP - something we had a few qualms about.

Finally, November saw the latest 'you're all going to be rich!' forecasts from Juniper Research, predicting that mobile games would generate $10 billion of revenues by 2013. Although this time in 2007, the company was saying that milestone would be passed in 2010...