PopCap Games, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced its Bejeweled 2 game for iPhone and iPod touch will be available beginning today from the new Apple App Store. Nearly five million users have already played the web app version of Bejeweled since its debut last summer, and hundreds of millions more have played the PC, online and console versions. Consumers have enjoyed more than six billion hours of the Bejeweled franchise across more than a dozen platforms from iPods to seatbacks on leading airlines.
"With the launch of Bejeweled 2 for iPhone, PopCap further strengthens its relationship with Apple to support the world's most popular handheld devices," noted Andrew Stein, director of mobile platforms at PopCap. "We've developed a winning strategy of taking our most popular, top-selling titles and optimizing them specifically to take advantage of a range of next-generation mobile devices like the iPhone. In launching PopCap's first iPhone-native game, we continue to deliver the best mobile gaming content on any platform."
With Bejeweled 2 for iPhone, PopCap is bringing all the addictive gameplay of the original in an iPhone-native version that has been fully optimized and enhanced to support iPhone 2.0 software and iPhone 3G. The game will be available for just $9.99 from Apple's App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/
Tuned specifically for the iPhone, Bejeweled 2 offers touch screen support with intelligence to determine which gem a player meant to touch (select), even when the player hasn't used precise finger strokes to "hit" the second gem perfectly. Additionally, the game will use the accelerometer to detect orientation and automatically shift between vertical and landscape modes depending on how the user is holding the device.
PopCap's leadership role in mobile gaming is underscored by its growing line-up of popular titles for the handheld market, including Chuzzle Mobile, Bookworm Mobile and the upcoming Peggle Mobile -- the first mobile games that PopCap developed and is distributing directly. Bejeweled and Zuma, two of PopCap's most popular games, have also been runaway successes on game-capable iPods since their introduction on those devices last year. Peggle, introduced for iPod in late 2007, has also enjoyed critical and commercial success, and is the highest-rated game for iPod based on customer rankings at iTunes.com.
About PopCap
PopCap Games (www.popcap.com) is the leading multi-platform provider of "casual games" - fun, easy-to-learn, captivating computer games that appeal to everyone from age 6 to 106. Based in Seattle, Washington, PopCap was founded in 2000 and has a worldwide staff of over 200 people in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, B.C., Dublin, Ireland and Shanghai. Its games have been downloaded more than 1 billion times by consumers worldwide, and its flagship title, Bejeweled®, has sold more than 10 million units across all platforms. Constantly acclaimed by consumers and critics, PopCap's games are played on the Web, desktop computers, myriad mobile devices (cell phones, smartphones, PDAs, Pocket PCs, iPod and more), popular game consoles (such as Xbox), and in-flight entertainment systems. PopCap is the only casual games developer with leading market share across all major sales channels, including Web portals, retail stores, mobile operators and developers, and game device manufacturers.