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Gameloft titles and other games on sale for Thanksgiving
This week, we're celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States, which also happens to be the official start of the holiday season gift-giving countdown. And that means sales in most places where entertainment is bought and sold, including the App Store. Here are a few of the most interesting sales we've heard about so far. Gameloft is having a big company-wide sale, with most of its apps on multiple platforms seeing discounts. That means The Amazing Spider-man app is just US$0.99, as is the action platformer BackStab and Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard. These prices might not have updated just yet where you live, but we're told they'll be discounted starting on Thursday and all through the weekend. Capcom's also got a sale going on, with Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile at $0.99 as the centerpiece. Ghosts 'n Goblins Gold Knights is also down to just a buck, and we may see more titles go cheap before the weekend ends. PictoSoft has sent nearly all of its titles down to free for the weekend, including the popular 8th Floor: Secret of Castle. I've mentioned this sale a few times now, but it's worth mentioning again: Puzzle Craft is free to download right now. This is the iOS game of the year, people, at zero cost to you. EA's got Real Racing 2 and the traditional Monopoly game down to 99 cents. FIFA 13 is $2.99, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted is $4.99. Stay tuned -- this is likely only the first of plenty of EA sales this year. Sega's brought Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 2 down to $2.99, which is the cheapest it's been in a while. Crazy Taxi is also just $2.99 as well. Bit-1 is a crazy little platformer that's now free, and it looks worth a download for sure. This is just the beginning. There are likely to be quite a few more sales going on this week and weekend due to Black Friday. The biggest sales actually come right before and after Christmas, when all of those newly unwrapped iPhones and iPads go looking on the App Store for games and apps to download. Stay tuned for lots more.
Black Friday app sales: Dragon Fantasy, Gem Keeper, lots more
Hope you had a great holiday yesterday! As expected, the App Sales are continuing through the weekend, and in addition to what we've already spotlighted, here are a few more. Steam is continuing its daily sales on all kinds of titles, Mac and PC alike, but Flight Control HD is the standout for iOS fans today. Space Ship Ion has gone free. Rolocule's games are all on sale, including Flick Tennis: College Wars for just a buck. The 7th Guest is just $1.99. Retro arcade game StarDash is down to 99 cents today. Dark Nebula: Episode One is available for free. 8-bit RPG throwback Dragon Fantasy is only 99 cents -- that's the lowest I've seen it, which makes this a must-grab for old-school NES fans. The very popular astronomy app Star Walk is a dollar off right now, down to $1.99 on iPhone and $3.99 on iPad. iSequence HD is down to just $2.99 from $15. Algoriddim's djay app for iPad is $9.99, half off. In my opinion, Gem Keeper is the best tower defense game on the App Store, and it's only 99 cents. I would say this is another must-get today. Worms Crazy Golf is 99 cents on iPhone and $2.99 on iPad. Disney is having a 99 cent sale, with many of their apps on sale for just a buck, including the iPad version of Split/Second. MumboJumbo also has a 99 cent sale on, including Luxor and some other great puzzle games. GTA Chinatown Wars is down to $2.99. Whew! The App Sales will all continue through the weekend, so we'll likely have even more posts with dropped prices in them to come. Next week on Cyber Monday there will be yet another round of deals, but you can expect the sales waves to continue through the holidays until all those new iPhones and iPads get unwrapped. Stay tuned!
Weekend sale on lots of iOS games
Today is indeed Veterans Day (and we do honor all of the men and women who have served for the United States of America -- thank you!), but the sales on the App Store this weekend haven't really been labeled as such. As far as I can tell, they're on sale just because. Nothing wrong with that! First and foremost, Scribblenauts is just 99 cents for the weekend. This one's a must buy -- it's an amazing game with a terrific iOS port that you should totally check out for that price. No question. EA's having a big sale with up to 80% off titles like Need for Speed, Dead Space, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Gameloft's sale is continuing, with lots of games, including Rainbow Six, HAWX, and the great Dungeon Hunter 2 down to just a buck. Little White Bear Studios' puzzler Tanzen is free for a limited time. Spirits for both iPad and iPhone is on sale for just a dollar. Street Fighter IV Volt is on sale for just 99 cents for the first time. Digital board game New World Colony is free to download. Kairosoft's Grand Prix Story is down to 99 cents as well. Contre Jour HD is just a buck -- this one is a really amazing title as well, grab it if you haven't yet. Peggle is also a dollar, as is Madfinger's really impressive looking Shadowgun. Finally, the non-HD version of World of Goo is just a buck. Holy moly, there are some great sales in there. Scribblenauts and Contre Jour are definitely two you should grab now if you haven't, and some of those others are steals as well. Enjoy the weekend!
Gameloft puts games on sale for Halloween
We've already pointed out Sega's Halloween sales in the App Store and now Gameloft has announced deals of its own: most of its titles are on sale for just 99 cents. Unfortunately the pickings are slim, but a few good titles can be found, including the official Uno app, driving title Asphalt 6, World of Warcraft-esque Order and Chaos Online, Star Battalion, and the Gameloft Action Pack, which includes three games for a buck. I suspect we'll see more sales like this as the Halloween draws nearer. I'm not sure what it is about the holidays that make iOS developers want to put their apps on sale, but that's not a complaint. It's always nice to get inexpensive apps for even less than usual.
Apple's App Store said to have 99.4 percent of all mobile app sales, more like 97.5
The latest research from Gartner indicates that, for the year 2009, only 16 million app sales were executed on mobile devices not bearing the infamous bitten apple logo. In reporting this data, Ars Technica inadvertently conflates Apple's latest announcement of three billion apps downloaded with the notion of three billion apps sold and pegs the App Store's market share at a whopping 99.4 percent -- but more realistic calculations still show it to be somewhere in the vicinity of 97.5 percent. Going off estimates (obtained by GigaOM) that a quarter of App Store downloads are paid-for apps, and taking a rough figure of 2.5 billion downloads in 2009, leaves us with around 625 million app sales performed by Apple, which comfortably dwarfs all its competition. Considering the fact 18 months ago there wasn't even an App Store to speak of -- whereas today Cupertino is gobbling up the best part of $4.2 billion in annual mobile apps revenue -- maybe you can now understand why we're covering every tiny drip of info about that mythical tablet.
