The News By Me

Rovio has announced through Twitter and its blog that it will be launching its Angry Birds spin-off, Angry Birds Rio, exclusively through the Amazon Appstore.

Like it did with GetJar, Rovio has decided to sell another Angry Birds game not through the official Android Market but a third-party site.

The Amazon Appstore has yet to launch but the Angry Birds Rio UK release date is 22 March, so it's a given that Amazon will open up its app shop before this.

Look mum, no ads!

Interestingly, Angry Birds Rio will be a paid-for app. When GetJar had exclusive rights to Angry Birds Seasons for Android, it was offering the game for free but with ads.

This isn't the case for Angry Birds Rio, even though Rovio will be getting a fair bit of cash from Twentieth Century Fox, as the game is a tie-in for the upcoming Rio animated film.

Alongside Angry Birds Rio, the Amazon Appstore will also get paid versions of Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons. This is the first time Android users will be able to play the apps ad-free.

"The Android platform has seen phenomenal growth, and it's great that new avenues for app distribution are opening up," explained CEO Mikael Hed on the Rovio blog.

"The openness of the Android platform works for the benefit of consumers and developers alike. It has been delightful to team up with Amazon to bring the Angry Birds franchise to this great new application marketplace."

Angry Birds developer Rovio has raised $42 million (£26 million) in investment this week, raising questions amongst fans about what might be on the way from the leading iPhone dev.

Rovio's latest round of $42 million in investments comes from VC firms Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures.

Atomico Ventures founder Niklas Zennström now joins the board of the Finnish studio, following the latest cash injection. What this will mean for the way the studio creates and distributes its games in the future remains to be seen.

Angry Birds: the franchise

The cash will help Rovio "to increase its reach internationally, and across markets including mobile, social media and other platforms, and via merchandising and media production and partnerships," according to Mikael Hed, CEO and co-founder of Rovio.

"With Angry Birds, we have successfully launched not only a strong new brand, but also a whole new entertainment franchise.

"Angry Birds will continue to grow, and we aim to create more similar success stories. We will strengthen the position of Rovio and continue building our franchises in gaming, merchandising and broadcast media."

Angry Birds has so far topped $70 million (£43.6 million) to date – made up from App Store sales, ad revenues (from the free version) and merchandising sales.

TechRadar has contacted Rovio to find out more about the studio's future plans, following this latest round of investment.

Stay tuned for some Angry Birds news soon and, hopefully, updates on new IP and Rovio's plans for taking its games to Facebook and other networks and mobile platforms.

A tie-up with 20th Century Fox will see an Angry Birds Rio app appear on mobile handsets, with the hugely popular mobile game "like the original, with a few new twists".

In a cunning piece of marketing by Fox, animated movie Rio – about a (fairly even-tempered) bird – will be supported by an Angry Birds Rio edition featuring 45 levels at launch and the promise of more to come.

"Rovio and 20th Century Fox present: Angry Birds Rio - coming to app stores everywhere in March!" tweeted Rovio, confirming the news.

"It's a great partnership, has been really good to work with the Fox guys. And it's a great game too that we, Rovio, publish," they add in another tweet.

Stand-out

The original Angry Birds is one of the stand-out hits in App history – quickly establishing itself as a massive seller.

Maker Rovio has seen the game top charts on multiple platforms – including the trial and paid-for iOS versions which launched (probably via catapult) the first incarnation.

Rovio and Fox have produced a trailer for the game, featuring the now familiar Angry Birds and their journey to Rio - we'll await the plush toy, cake and replica catapult story updates with veritable glee.

The Android version of Angry Birds has been given a massive update, which includes 45 brand-new levels and a whole host of new features.

For the imaging purists out there, you will be glad to hear that alongside the myriad new content, the update fixes some graphical issues including offering up full QVGA (320x240) support.

Rovio has also announced that the update brings optimisation for more Android devices.

Those using Android 1.6 will now be able to play Angry Birds without fear of blank screens.

Big setup

Also included is a new episode. Called The Big Setup. This level, according to Rovio: "pits the birds against the fiendish construction yard operated by the pigs."

The episode brings the total number of levels up to 195 on the Android platform.

According to AndroidPolice, who were quick off the mark spotting the update, the big which allows users to skip locked worlds hasn't been fixed so you can check out all the levels still without actually completing the worlds before them.

Oh, and good news for soft toy fans too – plushies that is, not plushophiles.

Angry Birds plush toys are now available for preorder. To place your order, get yourself to shop.angrybirds.com.

Microsoft's erroneous use of an Angry Birds icon on its Windows Phone 7 website has led to the developers of the popular mobile game denying that they are developing it for the new operating system.

Rovio Mobile has created one of the stand out successes for the Apple iPhone with Angry Birds, and is now in the process of rolling it out on the Android operating system.

Windows Phone 7 is due to be officially launched today, with Microsoft throwing everything but the kitchen sink into making its completely overhauled mobile operating system a success.

Denied

But when Microsoft used the familiar icon on the new Windows Phone 7 website, it led to Rovio using its Twitter account to deny that it was bringing Angry Birds to the new platform.

"We have NOT committed to doing a Windows Phone 7 version. Microsoft put the Angry Birds icon on their site without our permission, the company tweeted.

In truth, Rovio would be mad not to consider moving Angry Birds onto Windows Phone 7, should the handsets prove to be a success for Microsoft and the manufacturers that are using the new platform.

But, as a follow up tweet said: "nothing to do with if we do or don't [want to], it's just that we decide that ourselves."

Microsoft has responded to the furore, telling TechFlash: "It appears information was mistakenly posted to Microsoft's website, and has been removed."

Sure enough, the offending logo is gone now.

Android users casting envious glances at their iPhone-owning counterparts will have to wait a little longer to get the full version of the Angry Birds game.

The massively-popular feathered fowl-flinger has been on the Android Market in Lite version, but a recent Tweet from the developers stated that there would be a delay in launching it so it could add in multi-tasking:

"Good and bad news. Full version of Android pushed to next week. We are adding proper support for Android multitasking."

But at least it's not too long to wait - although it appears Angry Birds won't be landing on the HTC Hero due to real problems with frame rate.

BlackBerry Bonanza

In a separate Tweet, when asked about the possibility of Angry Birds on the BlackBerry platform, Rovio said:

"No plans for BlackBerry yet, maybe for the new ones."

Which makes sense, as Angry Birds is clearly designed to be used on a touchscreen, so when this tech becomes more prevalent in the BlackBerry range, perhaps it will mean the game could land on this platform too.

One of the iPhone's biggest gaming hits has finally arrived on the Android platform, with Rovio Mobile's phenomenally addictive Angry Birds making the jump to a new platform in beta.

Angry Birds has been a massive seller on Apple's App Store, and the calls for it to arrive on Android have been many and volumous.

And that dream is now a reality, with the company announcing on Twitter that the app is now on the Google platform.

Beta version

"And Angry Birds have landed on Android:-)" the company said, adding "If you have any problems with the Android beta, let us know. It's a beta, so we know it's not perfect. Help us make it better."

Rovio Mobile has impressed many with its after support – the original Angry Birds has been continually updated with more levels and different birds for free.

The game has been so successful that there is even talk of a film in the offing. We're not sure if the plot will stretch that far, but it may still be more complex than Transformers.

Nearly closed

"This week, we were planning to run a closed beta test of Angry Birds Lite for Android," explained Rovio on its blog.

"Due to the massive response and demand from the Android community, we have decided to make Angry Birds Lite Beta available for everybody through the Android Market this Friday.

"Angry Birds Lite Beta will run on second generation Android devices and upwards.

"We want to ensure that we will publish the best game ever released on Android, and we hope that this beta version will prove to our Android fans that Angry Birds has been worth the wait!"