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.Don't be frightened by free-to-play, urges GREE's David McCarthy There are many reasons why the free-to-play business model has become dominant in mobile games. But one company that has and is significantly encouraging its adoption is Japanese social gaming network GREE.After all, it wants to build the largest audience - 1 billion gamers is its goal - and getting developers to give away games for free is the best way of doing this.But what are the implications for creativity and gameplay? That's the angle from GREE's developer relation manager David McCarthy."Free-to-play is not inherently evil. It's just another way of making games, for people who perceive the value of those games a little differently," he argues.Read the full article hereLast-gen handhelds outsell the PS Vita in Europe, Japan and the USWhere now for Sony and PS Vita?Despite being an interesting piece of hardware, it's clear the handheld has not found a large enough market; something recently highlighted by the low (perhaps even no) key launch of PlayStation Mobile.And to highlight the problem, PS Vita continues to be outsold by PSP, and Nintendo's 3DS and its aging DS.Read the full article hereOpinion: Crazy iPad mini pricing makes iPad look like the best dealThe big news of the week wasn't when Apple announced its 7.9-inch iPad mini.No, the surprise was its entry level $329 price point; something that sits strangely considering the entry level iPad is $399 while the new iPod touches are $299.And that's not to mention the competition - Nexus 7 at from $199 or Kindle Fire range from $159.Read the full article here

Rovio partners with McDonald's in China to create location-based Angry BirdsCan Angry Birds licensing business continue to grow at its amazing pace?Apparently so as Rovio's latest deal sees the release of a special branded version of the game, which includes location-based levels and power ups for players who go to McDonald's restaurants in China.There's also a desktop version of the game available.Read the full article here

The Charticle: How Mobage is stamping down hard on the Android gas pedalThere's a lot of corporate news coming out of GREE, but very little from its equally profitable Japanese rival DeNA.That's was the starting point for last week's Charticle, which on the back of the Marvel War of Heroes release considered recent launches on DeNA's Mobage platform.These have been strongly focused on Android - 63 titles - compared to only 13 for iOS.Read the full article here