Hot Five

The PG.biz Hot Five: PopCap's freemium fuel, Sony's portable strategy discussed, and Xoom 2 xcitement

Last week's top five stories

The PG.biz Hot Five: PopCap's freemium fuel, Sony's portable strategy discussed, and Xoom 2 xcitement
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.



Freemium games could make up 95% of iOS downloads in one year's time, reckons PopCap's Giordano Contestabile

Last week saw the industry offering its take on Distimo's assessment on the rise of the in-app purchase.

The response of PopCap's Giordano Contestabile - senior director of product and business strategy for mobile – proved most popular of all, with Contestabile claiming he expects in-app purchases employed in free releases could end up accounting for 95 percent of all App Store revenue in 2012.

Little wonder that freemium is set to form a focus for PopCap moving forward.

"While we typically don’t disclose much about our future plans, I can say that you're in for a lot of surprises for us in the coming months, and that in-app transactions and the freemium model are going to feature prominently," revealed Contestabile.
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Samsung sues Apple in Holland over 3G patents; wants all devices banned

With the two firms already at loggerheads in more countries than in your average Geography exam paper, news that Samsung is to sue Apple in Holland is anything but surprising.

Samsung's attack, however, is being billed as a response to Apple's own attack on Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the country, and will see the Korean firm attempt to enforce four 3G technology patents and, by default, ban all Apple 3G devices in the country.

Even if Samsung wins out, however, any such ban may not be forthcoming.

"It may reduce it to the question of whether Apple owes Samsung any money, and if so, how much, without any need to talk about an injunction," said IP analyst Florian Mueller of the complicated nature of the case.

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The PG.biz Mobile Gaming Mavens discuss Sony's future in mobile and portable gaming

Last week saw the Mavens tackle the complicated nature of Sony's portable strategy – from the pending roll out of PS Vita to PlayStation Suite and its incorporation in Xperia Play handsets and the firm's recently launched Android powered tablets.

Will such a multifaceted approach hand Sony an advantage, or is it a sign Sony has no set strategy?

"If I own a Vita and an iPhone, the world will actually still rotate," said Kevin Dent of Tiswaz, giving Sony plenty of credit.

Thomas Nielsen of Progressive Media, however, was more confused than impressed.

"With Xperia Play, the PlayStation experience was all about how games needed D-pads. Now with the tablets ... it's about something else? I'm getting confused what the PlayStation brand really is all about."
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Ex-IUGO and Glu Mobile exec Sarah Thomson joins OpenFeint as director of developer relations

Almost worthy of her own dedicated news feed, Sarah Thomson has jumped from IUGO to Glu and now to OpenFeint in recent weeks, this time taking up the post as director of developer relations.

Her stint at Glu was cut short because the firm shelved its publishing initiative gPartners, which Thomson was due to help drive.

Now, she'll help form strong relationships with studios on behalf of social gaming platform OpenFeint, taking up residence in San Francisco as a result.

"OpenFeint is going through an exciting phase of growth right now and Sarah is exactly the kind of person we need to keep up the momentum," said senior vice president of marketing and developer relations Eros Resmini of her appointment.
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Details emerge of Motorola's Xoom 2 tablets

Like many non-iPad tablets, Xoom hasn't exactly set the tills ringing to date, but that didn't stop talk of its successor clocking up hits aplenty on PG.biz last week.

An anonymous tipster leaked specs on two Xoom 2 tablets, both codenamed 'Fleming', running Android 3.2 with rear-facing 5MP HD camera and coming in at around 9.3mm thick.

One, however, will be a 10.1-inch device, the other a smaller 8.2-inch unit. Further speculation elsewhere on the web also suggested the bigger tablet of the two will pack in a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM.

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Until next week, PocketGamer.biz pickers...
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With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.