Games represent the largest single app category on Apple App Stores, and account for half of the downloads of both free and paid apps. In total, more than five million games a day were downloaded in the US and six European territories combined during March 2011. The 63 million iOS gamers in these seven countries downloaded an average of 2.5 games per month.

Other Highlights:
? 88% of downloaded top 300 iOS games are now offered for free
? In-game purchases (within both free and paid games) generated approximately two-fifth of total revenues
? In-game spending on free games grossed 40% of the total revenues for iPhone/iPod Touch and 32% for iPad
? Between six and seven percent of the online population has an iPhone in the US, UK, France and Germany, while Spain, The Netherlands and Belgium trail with three to four percent
? The share of iPhone owners who play iOS games is between 50 and 75%

Features:
Features 210 levels, leaderboards, achievements, Facebook and Twitter integration, and lots and lots of Angry Birds!

What’s New In This Version:

• A NEW THEME IN THE FRONTIER BADLANDS
• 15 NEW LEVELS – NO BELLYACHIN’
• A NEW GOLDEN EGG FOR Y’ALL CITY SLICKERS
• GAME CENTER SUPPORT
• COWBOY UP WITH THE MIGHTY EAGLE

You can purchase Angry Birds HD from the App Store for $4.99.

In the opening of the app’s description, ZeptoLab, the developer of Cut the Rope, describes their appreciation to fans and outlines how they’re providing Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift in gratitude.

ZeptoLab wants to thank all you Om Nom fans out there by giving you this all new Holiday Gift featuring a great new stocking feature that magically shoots the Candy round the box. You guys rock, Happy Holidays! Oh, and shake your iPhone for a special surprise!

This standalone holiday-themed version of festive On Nom isn’t just about Christmas trees and reindeers, even though one of On Nom’s new expressions includes antlers. Included in this box are 25 fun-filled levels, holiday background music, new intro video, new achievements, and a few pairs of Christmas socks.

As mentioned earlier, these new Christmas socks are as magical as the holiday itself. Drop your candy in one sock and it will fly out the other. The thing about these fabricated foot warmers is the candy comes oujt as quickly as it went in. So, keep that in mind when you’re calculating strategies.

The “special surprise.” What is this kind little additional gift? I can’t bring myself to ruin it. As instructed, shake your iDevice on the main or option menu to activate it. After a second or two, your iDevice screen will be littered with cool holiday goodies.

Compatible with iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch (universal) running iOS 3.0 or later, Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift is available in the App Store now for absolutely free. Game Center features require iOS 4.1 or later.

via AppAdvice

MacStories predicts Infinity Blade to hit the European App Stores in around ten hours (midnight, GMT). U.S. iDevice fans are unfortunately going to have to wait a little longer.

We’ll be reporting as soon as Infinity Blade is available in an App Store near you.

Calling it, “the most intense and exciting addition to Fruit Ninja yet,” Halfbrick will release the revision as a free update in early November. Halfbrick will first release Arcade Mode for iOS devices, like iPhone and iPad, and then later complete the circle with Android.

The Fruit Ninja arcade mode spans 60 seconds and revolves around bonus colored bananas that unleash:

• “Double Points – This banana will award you double points for a short period of time. Criticals and combos count too, so rack up those fruit for some massive scores!”
• “Frenzy – If you’re not content with the amount of fruit on screen, the Frenzy banana will take care of that. A mammoth amount of fruit will begin flying in, but you have to stay focused to slice it all!”
• “Freeze – The entire screen will slow down, allowing for maximum accuracy and combo potential!”

If that didn’t get you excited, Halfbrick also sent along this epic Michael Bay-esque teaser:

Fruit Ninja Arcade Mode from Blake Robinson on Vimeo.

[Mashable]

GAME CENTER

iOS 4.1 marks the return of Game Center to the iPhone. Now with a more “gamey” look, it will allow you to make your iDevice gaming a bit more social, just like with Open Feint. Interestingly, it packs a whole bunch of VoIP APIs that should allow you to chat live over voice with your friends.

Camera App

The buttons in the camera app now reposition themselves when you switch to landscape mode.

Parental Controls Tweaks

You can now prevent your kids from using FaceTime and Game Center multiplayer games. Yet, you can’t block the front facing camera alltogether…

Bluetooth AVRCP Support

Your bluetooth accessories and car (if so equipped) can now take full control of your iPhone’s music. That is play, pause, skip and so on.

FaceTime Favorites

You can now add FaceTime links to your contacts directly in the favorites tab.

New Archive Icon for your Gmail account

A nice little tweak that will make the UI a bit clearer.

Others

• Spellcheck off switch
• High-res home icons for all apps
• Game Center push notifications
• New signal bars
• Faster Camera app
• Improved performance on the iPhone 3G

Not surprisingly, there are several things missing from the iPhone version of the game compared to its console counterpart. For starters, you don’t get all 19 characters. Instead, you are restricted to just eight world warriors: Ryu, Ken, Guile, Blanka, Chun-Li, Dhalsim, M. Bison, and Abel. I would have liked to see Akuma and Gouken in there, but no such luck.

In terms of controls, you’ll be using the touchscreen with an overlaid virtual gamepad. Instead of the three punch and three kick configuration, you are given one punch button, one kick button, and what appear to be a couple of special buttons (for supers and ultras, presumably).

There’s a “Dojo” mode for practice and multiplayer is achieved via Bluetooth. Based on early reviews, it’s a great mobile version of Street Fighter IV. The graphics look decent too. Find it in the App Store for ten bucks.

[ by Michael Kwan ]

Street Fighter IV for the Apple iPhone