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Angry Birds Rio getting free Rio 2 movie content updates
To celebrate the impending release of Rio 2, the animated feature about a bunch of tropical birds from Rio de Janeiro migrating to the Amazon rainforest, the free Angry Birds Rio video game tie-in will receive several content updates. Four different episodes, each comprised of numerous levels, will be doled out over the next few months; however, the first of these planned content updates, "Rocket Rumble," is available right now on both Android and iOS. Angry Birds Rio launched in March of 2011 and secured 10 million downloads in under a month. The Angry Birds franchise alone earned creator Rovio $100 million in sales throughout 2011.
North Korea launches targeted attack... on Angry Birds
North Korea's government-approved Samjiyon tablet is about as desirable as you'd guess, but there's something the sad little slate has that even the iPad doesn't: a built-in copy of Angry Birds Rio. As The Washington Post reports, Angry Birds creators Rovio Entertainment confirmed the existence of Angry Birds on North Korea's obnoxious Android tablet, and also confirmed that the game was outright stolen and used without the company's consent. The 7-inch tablet features a 1GHz CPU, a gig of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. That might not sound very impressive when compared to the iPad Air -- or even the iPad 2 -- but at least it comes with an e-book copy of Gone With The Wind and the worst of all the Angry Birds titles.
Angry Birds Rio free for a limited time on iPhone and iPad
If there's one thing that could draw a bit of attention away from yesterday's surprise launch of Temple Run 2, it's a can't-miss deal on an Angry Birds game. In this case, it's news that both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad versions of Angry Birds Rio -- the mash-up of Rovio's hit fowl-flinging title and Fox's 2011 CG-animated flick Rio -- are now free as the App Store's App of the Week promotion. They're normally US$0.99 and $2.99, respectively. Angry Birds Rio deviates from the core series a bit by seeing you saving animals from cages, rather than bringing architecture down on top of evil pigs. It also boasts a power-up system to make things a little more interesting via abilities such as laser targeting and super-sized birds. The free offer's only for a week, so get the game while it's hot -- or end up angry.
Here's a look at the whole universe of Angry Birds games (so far)
Bad Piggies is the latest title added to Rovio's growing universe of Angry Birds games, and the latest word is that it's the fastest-selling game in the company's history, hitting number one on the App Store just a few hours after it launched. Given all of the various Angry Birds properties that have hit the App Store (and elsewhere), you might not have heard about everything Angry Birds out there. But worry not -- we've put together a quick guide here to the entire universe of Angry Birds. Here's a list of every single Angry Birds game Rovio has released so far, from the first title released back in December of 2009, all the way up until Bad Piggies' release about a week ago. Keep in mind that we're just talking about the games here -- this list doesn't include the countless bits and bobs of Angry Birds merchandise out there, and other partnerships like the upcoming Angry Birds TV show and maybe even a movie. Angry Birds (December 11, 2009): This is Rovio's original hit and its first iOS title (published by Chillingo, which is now part of EA) after a string of uninteresting J2ME releases and games for Nokia's N-Gage phone console. Since its original iOS release, the first version of Angry Birds has also shown up on a number of other mobile operating systems, including Android (as a freemium title), Windows Phone, Blackberry Tablet OS and Symbian. The original game has also seen about nine different free updates, as well as a number of promotional add-ons and content as well. Angry Birds HD (April 2, 2010): The iPad version of the game arrived about six months after the iPhone version, just as the first iPad appeared. The game wasn't fundamentally different, but the larger screen made for a larger audience, and the higher price point ($4.99) definitely made Rovio more money. The standard and HD games also got free versions at some point as well, with eight mini-episodes released for free. Angry Birds Seasons (October 21, 2010): Rovio introduced this first official spinoff just under a year after the original launch, featuring tons of new levels, and a regular holiday-based structure for updates (an HD version was released right around the same time). The game originally started out as Angry Birds Halloween, but as more holidays came around, it was updated to its current "Seasons" status. There have been 13 different updates to the game so far, with the latest being a "Back to School" update back in August of 2012. Angry Birds Magic (October 2010): This game, also called "Angry Birds in Florida" in some places, was made specifically for Nokia's NFC (near field communication) smartphones, and had a feature where when two smartphones with the game installed on them came near each other, different levels would be unlocked. The title was announced to great fanfare at a Nokia conference in mid-2010, and presumably it released on the smartphones later that year, though since we're all iPhone owners here, we have no idea how it turned out. Angry Birds Rio (March 22, 2011): This version of the game was created in conjunction with the animated movie Rio and featured a Rovio-built storyline that had the movie's birds crossing paths with the Angry ones. It premiered on the movie's release date with two sets of levels, and a series of updates provided more and more levels to go along with the film's storyline. This is arguably the least popular version of Angry Birds, although there's no doubt that both the game and the movie benefited from the shared marketing. And given that there's an Angry Birds TV show on the way, Hollywood paid close attention to this release. Angry Birds Chrome (May 11, 2011): Rovio designed a special browser-based version of the game for Google's Chrome browser, completely free to play and supported by in-app purchases. The game featured "Chrome bombs" which were special items that players had to find and hit with the frustrated fowl, in order to unlock "Chrome dimension" levels. Angry Birds Space (March 22, 2012): This game was billed as a full Angry Birds sequel, with all new levels and new gravity-based gameplay, as the birds were tossed off of actual planets and out into the upper reaches of space. But since the app's release, Rovio has spun it more as just another part of the current universe, with new twists on the game's tried-and-true method of throwing birds into pigs. Space spawned both HD and free versions on the App Store as well, and has been ported off to Android, Windows and Mac. Angry Birds Friends (May 23, 2012): Angry Birds Friends is the Facebook version of the game, which has been running online for a while now. The game features weekly tournaments and lots of competition between Facebookers and their friends. (There are also a number of other browser-based versions of the game that have been live at different times over the years, including promotions with Samsung, Formula 1 racing driver Heikki Kovalainen, Wonderful Pistachios, Pepsi, Fuji TV and a Finnish candy company. These games have all featured new levels and themed content, but have been live only during certain promotional times.) Angry Birds Trilogy (September 25, 2012): Rovio teamed up just a little while ago with console publisher Activision to bring the content from Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio to consoles as a downloadable title, including the Nintendo 3DS, the Xbox 360 (with Kinect integration) and the PlayStation 3. Sales only just started, so we'll have to wait and see how Rovio's birds do in the larger traditional gaming market after they have dominated so much in the mobile markets. Bad Piggies (September 27, 2012): Which brings us back to Bad Piggies, Rovio's current hit, and the first game in the series that is build around the Pigs, specifically the task of building them vehicles to try and find a map to the birds' eggs. There will likely be a whole slew of updates for this title as well, and then ... who knows? Rovio has certainly grown its Angry Birds franchise by capitalizing on the initial game, so as big as this universe is already, there's no doubt that the company still has lots of other ideas on how to make it even bigger.
Pigs beware: Angry Birds Trilogy coming to 3DS, PS3 and Xbox 360 later this year
Despite already being a massive success story on the Android and iOS platforms, Rovio's clearly not planning on slowing down its Angry Birds adventure any time soon. Speaking to IGN earlier today, the company's Executive Vice President of Games, Petri Järvilehto, told the site that the Angry Birds Trilogy is headed -- in physical form, no less -- to the 3DS, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 later this holiday season. Sadly, Järvilehto didn't say how much we'll have to spend on the bird-slinging trilogy, or when exactly it'll be available at retail shops -- though he did say you should "think of the game as the ultimate collector's edition." The Trilogy's set to include the original Angry Birds title, Seasons and Rio, with the set expected to offer support for Kinect, Move and StreetPass on Nintendo's three-dimensional handheld.
Angry Birds Trilogy goes retail on 3DS, Xbox 360 and PS3
You can buy Angry Birds plushes, t-shirts, fruit snacks, board games, and dozens of other items at stores, but until this holiday the one thing you couldn't get in a box was the actual game. Now, Rovio has announced the Angry Birds Trilogy, a collection of Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio, on a PS3 or Xbox 360 disc or 3DS cartridge, for release this holiday season."You can think of the game as the ultimate collector's edition," Rovio EVP of Games Petri Järvilehto told IGN. "There are new cinematics, extras and other entertaining content. In addition all of the existing material has been uprezzed and re-treated for the high-resolution and big screen." New "reactive" backgrounds take advantage of the fact that you're playing on a screen big enough to see backgrounds.The upgrades also feature Kinect and Move capability, as well as StreetPass functionality on 3DS. Most importantly, they support the "being able to be bought and given as holiday gifts" functionality that Rovio has lacked so far.
Rovio makes a Mighty Eagle's $68 million in profit in financial squawk
Rovio has announced that in 2011, it made a huge $106.3 million turnover and a whopping $67.6 million in profit (before tax), showing that flinging feathery fowl is a very serious business. Fueled by the success of Angry Birds, Seasons and Rio, the company grew by a factor of eight in the last year, from 28 employees all the way to 224. The company adds that the three games were downloaded 648 million times and are now used by 200 million daily users, while sales of merchandise contributed to around 30 percent of the total revenue. The report adds that the only barrier to future profits is if people stop buying new smartphones, but we're not sure that's likely to be the case for a while.
The Angry Birds earned Rovio quite a bit of chicken scratch in 2011
The Angry Birds are quite a catch, it seems. Franchise creator Rovio announced this morning that earnings in 2011 topped $100 million, which it owes solely to sales of the Angry Birds franchise. "The heavy investments made in 2011 to all business areas will be seen in future products," Rovio CEO Mikael Hed noted in the press release. "To ensure continuous success we need to be creative and stay focused on entertaining our millions of fans by continuously developing new and innovative products and services." The company earned approximately $67.6 million in pre-tax profit in 2011, or about 64 percent of total revenue.Hed doesn't necessarily mean branching out from his company's most popular franchise, of course. Especially not after such a big year for merchandising surrounding the Angry Birds – Rovio's "consumer products" unit took in "about 30 percent" of 2011's total earnings (approximately $31.9 million). That's a lot of Angry Birds gummy snacks!Rovio's $106.3 million in revenue (not profit, mind you, but revenue) is owed primarily to growth in the Finnish company's Angry Birds games catalog, which expanded by just one game in 2011: a movie tie-in named "Angry Birds Rio." The games have been downloaded approximately 648 million times across all platforms as of Dec. 31, 2011, and have a monthly user base of approximately 200 million.[Image credit: Flickr user 'Nearsoft']
20th Century Fox talks about the success of Angry Birds Rio
I attended an event called the LA AppShow last night here in Santa Monica, CA, and I saw seven demos of various apps that are seeing significant success on the App Store. Matt McMahon from 20th Century Fox was there, and while his company didn't publish the actual app in question, he's certainly seen plenty of success; he worked closely with Rovio on the creation of Angry Birds Rio, the movie tie-in that has nabbed 20 million downloads on the App Store in just 20 days of release, and has helped send the Rio animated movie to number one at the box office. McMahon didn't talk about the actual development of Angry Birds Rio -- most of the technical work was left to Rovio, who McMahon called the "best in breed" on the App Store. But McMahon and his company did make an interesting decision, and that was to pin a large arm of their marketing for a huge movie on a little company from Finland with a popular app about birds and pigs.
10 million flock to download Angry Birds Rio
It took just ten days for Angry Birds Rio -- the movie tie-in spinoff of Angry Birds -- to land on over 10 million mobile phones. An ambiguous tweet from Angry Birds dev Rovio announced the news, stating, "10 in 10 ... Angry Birds Rio breaking all records. A massive thanks to all our fans!!!" Mobile-Ent.biz clarified the tweet's meaning moments later, asking if the "10 in 10" was referring to 10 million downloads in the first 10 days. Unfortunately, Rovio didn't parse which of those 10 million downloads were of the game's Android version versus the iOS version -- Angry Birds Rio is free through Amazon's Droid Marketplace, whereas it costs $1 for iOS devices. That said, even if only half of those sales were of the $1 version, that's roughly $3.5 million after Apple takes its 30 percent. Not too shabby for 10 days on the market!
AT&T planning access to Amazon Appstore, sideloading still an open question
Angry Birds developer Rovio announced on its Facebook account a few hours ago that "AT&T is also working on enabling purchases from the Amazon Appstore soon," which would mark a pretty big move on AT&T's part since they've been firm in their resolve to keep apps from outside the Android Market ecosystem off their branded Android devices -- a frustrating (and arguably illogical) stance, to say the least. Well, first the good news -- AT&T has confirmed to us that they are, in fact, setting up access to Amazon's store: "We're working to give our Android customers access to third party application stores. This requires updates to our systems and finalizing arrangements with Amazon. We will share more info with our customers in the near future." The bad news is that AT&T's having any discussions with Amazon about this at all, which would seem to indicate that they're planning on making an exception to their Android Market policy for the Amazon Appstore rather than simply enabling sideloading on devices altogether and calling it a day. We suppose this could involve a round of firmware updates that drops the Appstore in ROM, but that seems like an awful lot of work considering how much red tape is involved in pushing even a single update for one handset on a major carrier. More on this as we get it; hopefully, AT&T subscribers will have their Angry Birds Rio fix soon enough. [Thanks, Thomas]
Amazon Android Appstore is live, offering free Angry Birds Rio
Amazon's officially dipped its toes into the cool, clear waters of Android software market, launching its own App Store earlier today. Folks can search for apps using the online retailer's familiar database, and can even find a sweet little early adopter bonus today: Rovio Mobile's (Amazon-exclusive) Angry Birds Rio, marked down from $0.99 to the considerably lower $0.00. You might want to considering bookmarking that particular site for your future perusal -- according to a banner at the top of the page, Amazon's Android store will offer one paid app for free every day. [Thanks, Justin!]
Angry Birds Rio out now on iPhone, iPad, Mac
The movie tie-in game for Angry Birds, called Angry Birds Rio, is now available on the iOS App Store for 99 cents on iPhone and $2.99 on the iPad; it's $4.99 on the Mac App Store. The game features 60 new levels of the popular bird-throwing game and stars two characters from the upcoming movie Rio. It features full Game Center integration with all new achievements and boasts "a spectacular boss fight" of some kind. In short, if you like Angry Birds, you'll enjoy this one as well. The game unfortunately does contain those ads that had some feathers ruffled in the original version, but the ratings on iTunes haven't suffered very much. And the description on the iOS store does promise updates "throughout 2011," so there's more content to come. In case you don't want to spend the buck just yet, there are also free versions for both platforms that have six levels to check out. But it's Angry Birds -- while it looks from the screenshot like you're busting birds out of cages rather than attacking pigs, the catapult physics gameplay is still the main focus.
Amazon Appstore for Android goes live, welcomes newcomers with free Angry Birds Rio
In spite of Apple's grumbling, Amazon's proceeding full steam ahead with the rollout of its Appstore for Android. The switch has just been flipped and early adopters will be welcomed with a free copy of Angry Birds Rio, whose Android launch Amazon scooped all to itself. Beyond day one, Rio will be a $0.99 app, but others will take its place as the online retailer is aiming to serve one usually-paid app for free each day. A total of around 3,800 applications are available at launch and you'll be able to get on board via either a dedicated Appstore app on Android (sideload link available below) or Amazon's web interface. The latter offers you a 30-minute Test Drive facility, where you can try out a program you might fancy for your phone before purchasing. Service looks to be US-only for now -- sorry, international users. Update: The web Appstore has gone down. Don't panic, we're sure it's just teething troubles and not a smiting by the Cupertino ninja collective. In the mean time, the app still looks to be working okay.
Android Angry Birds Rio exclusive to Amazon Appstore
A retailer exclusivity agreement has been announced for a promotional game, potentially limiting its ability to reach users and promote the movie, but also increasing the promotion for the retailer. Amazon announced that it will be the exclusive carrier of the Android version of Angry Birds Rio, meaning that the movie tie-in title will not be available on the Android Market at launch, but will instead be downloadable through the Amazon Appstore. What? "Amazon Appstore?" The retailer is launching its own digital marketplace for Android "very soon," and you would do well to familiarize yourself with it, because it'll also be home to "exclusive" debuts for ad-free Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons.
Angry Birds Rio will be exclusive to Amazon Appstore on Android launch
Think you'll be heading to the Android Market to get your next fix of Rovio Mobile's insanely popular Angry Birds? Think again. The next installment in the aviary vengeance saga, Angry Birds Rio, will launch exclusively on Amazon's upcoming Appstore for Android. That does sound like it will eventually achieve universal distribution via the Market, but in the interim Amazon has scored a pretty big scoop in its efforts to attract users to its own app repository. We're also promised the Appstore is launching "very soon" and Amazon has just inaugurated an @amazonappstore account on Twitter to keep us abreast of when precisely that will happen.
GDC 2011: Building the Angry Birds franchise
Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka hosted an entertaining panel on the first day of the 2011 Game Developers Conference here in San Francisco. Rovio's app, Angry Birds, is the runaway hit of Apple's iOS platform, signifying both the potential reach of iOS games and the chance for indie mobile developers to create gigantic hits. Vesterbacka, speaking in his Finnish accent, was almost arrogant at times during his talk, saying that after last year's GDC, Rovio is "a bit more popular now for some reason," and that while people laughed at his predictions of 100 million downloads for the game across all the platforms, Rovio is basically there. But he was also informative and helpful, and he thanked Apple multiple times during the talk. Rovio's made 52 different mobile games so far, and Vesterbacka credited Apple for changing the tempo around the mobile games market. Before Apple, mobile carriers held all of the power, and carriers both a) wanted a lot of games for their specific platforms, and b) didn't care about the quality. Vesterbacka joked about pitching Angry Birds to a carrier before the App Store: "It's a game where you slingshot birds at three pigs," he said, and then he mimicked the reply to the crowd's laughter: "It's not a poker game? Not interested."
Super Bowl ad to contain hidden Angry Birds level code
If you're just hanging out playing Angry Birds in the living room while the Super Bowl is on, be sure to look up while the commercial for the animated film Rio is playing. Hidden in the ad will be a code for a downloadable Angry Birds levels (though it's not been specified if it will be compatible with all versions of the game.) Users who find the code in the ad (which will be available on YouTube later), and then complete the level will be entered to win a trip to the March 22 premiere of Rio -- the same day the Angry Birds Rio promotional game is released. No details about the level itself have been released, but we can confirm it involves slingshotted spheroid birds launched at rickety structures.
Angry Birds Rio movie tie-in game revealed, coming in March
The next Angry Birds game isn't based on a holiday. It's not a true sequel, either. Instead, it's a licensed game based on 20th Century Fox's upcoming animated film, Rio. This bizarre partnership makes some sense once you find out what the movie is actually about: A group of kidnapped birds join together in an attempt to escape and stop their captors once and for all. But we wonder -- will Angry Birds Rio feature pigs? And will the birds be just as suicidal as before? Rio hits theaters on April 15, but the licensed game will be available on "app stores worldwide" (presumably on both Android and iOS) in March. Check out the teaser trailer after the break.
