Rovio – Supporting Windows Phone is “a big undertaking”

We first heard about the “Angry Birds Space” a couple of weeks ago and there was a notable omission in the supported OS’s.

Our exact words at the time were..

Set your alarm for March 22nd people…

Oh .. and if you’ve got a Windows Phone… Ermmm… Look! A balloon! (Runs)

Now Bloomberg have got details on why there’s no Windows Phone version available. They spoke to Peter Vesterbacka, chief marketing officer at Rovio. He said that…

We’re the No. 1 app in the Windows Phone app store, but it’s a big undertaking to support it, and you have to completely rewrite the application.

If you look at activations, Apple’s iOS and Android are clearly bigger than any other platform. We want to be on all screens, but we have to consider the cost of supplying the smaller platforms. With Windows Phone it’s a lot of work to technically support it.

Although Microsoft and Nokia have moved forward in the market, there’s still a tendancy for many customers to choose the handsets with the biggest catalogue of applications and games. To hear that Rovio, who have the Number 1 app on the Windows Phone charts, don’t plan to develop this (or possibly future versions, who knows) for Windows Phone must be worrying for both Microsoft and Nokia too.

Angry Birds, which is familiar to even those without smartphones, has become a global phenomenon – now appearing in television shows, adverts, movies and as playground adventure parks. Heikki Kovalainen will even have an Angry Bird all over his polished helmet during the F1 season (lucky boy), but sadly he won’t be getting Angry Birds Space if he owns a Windows Phone.

Link – Bloomberg