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A survey of over 2,000 mobile app developers has found evidence of waning interest in Google's Android OS for a fourth consecutive quarter. Gamesindustry.biz reports that the survey, conducted by Appcelerator and analyst firm IDC every three months, polled 2,173 developers and found that 78.6 per cent expressed interest in developing for Android. More >

More than 300 million Android devices have been sold worldwide, Google has confirmed. The news comes from a post on the Google Mobile blog to coincide with the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which began yesterday. Google also claims that 850,000 Android devices are activated every single day, representing growth year on year of over 250 per cent. More >

Cloud gaming service OnLive will soon be available on Google's Smart TV platform, Google TV. Announced in a press release, the move will mean games are playable in HD, streamed from the cloud, on all internet-connected Smart TVs, Blu-ray players and media streamers running Google's platform. More >

The top 200 apps on the iPhone App Store generated four times as much revenue last month as those on the Android Market, according to a new study. The report, by mobile analytics firm Distmo, also found that iPad apps made twice as much money as their Android Market equivalent. It also shows a dramatic shift towards freemium, with half of the top 200 iPhone apps, and 65 per cent of Android apps, are free-to-play and supported by in-app purchasing. More >

Square Enix is among a number of developers Google has signed up to develop console-quality games playable in its Chrome browser. VentureBeat reports that CEO Yoichi Wada was at the GooglePlex headquarters in California yesterday, and revealed that the publisher has remade its 2009 action-adventure Mini Ninjas as a "native client" game. The client is Google's open-source technology that allows for web applications that execute native code in a browser. More >

Google's Chrome browser will soon have greatly enhanced gaming capabilities, with plug-and-play support for gamepads on the way. The news was revealed by Google developer advocate Paul Kinlan during a talk earler today at Develop Liverpool. Due in the first quarter of next year, the update will also see Chrome support cameras and microphones without the need for plug-ins, with Kinlan hinting at the possibilities for augmented reality games and player tracking. More >

Ubisoft appears unlikely to release its newly announced social games on Google+ due to a decline in active users on Google's social network. Last week Ubisoft announced three new social games based on TV shows, and a fourth to be developed by Loot Drop, the studio run by Brenda Brathwaite and Doom designer John Romero. Speaking to Inside Social Games Chris Early, VP of digital publishing, insisted Ubisoft was "not a one-platform publisher," but said Google+ needed to maintain a steady flow of users for it to be a viable option. More >

OpenFeint's Game Channel, an app that directs Android users to recommended games in its crowded Marketplace, has launched. Already available for iOS, the app promotes a free game each day, as well as offering bundles of recommended games. More >

Developer Spacetime Studios' MMOG Star Legends: The Blackstar Chronicles will allow iOS, Android, PC and Mac players to play together for the first time. The fully 3D game has been ported to the in-development open source Google Native Client (NaCl), allowing for cross-platform play when it launches on Google Chrome. More >

Google has launched PlayN, a tool that compiles a single body of Java source code into versions which run on HTML5, Java, Android and Flash. Described on Google's developer site as an "open-source cross-platform abstraction layer", PlayN uses the existing GWT compiler (Google Web Toolkit) to eliminate any platform-specific calls from your code and replaces them with "tiny, targeted entry point classes that hook into each platform-specific implementation." More >

While games arrived on Google's social network, Google+, back in August, support from social gaming titan Zynga was limited, with only Zynga Poker available on the service. That has now changed with the launch of CityVille, the most successful social game on Facebook. More >

Inside Social Games reports that Facebook last week updated its Platform Policies to forbid developers cross-promoting games on "any competing social platform." A Facebook spokesperson said: "[We] don't believe it's appropriate to use our site to promote a competitive service whether through ads, platform or any other channel we make available to other thirdparties on Facebook. We've had this policy in place for our advertising platform for some time, and the recent update extended this to Canvas applications on Facebook." While the language used in the new terms - "Apps on Facebook may not integrate, link to, promote, or redirect to any app on any other competing social platform" - suggests promotion of mobile games may also be forbidden, it has been established that this is not the case. As such it seems little coincidence that Facebook chose to update its policy in the week games were added to Google's new social network, Google+.

The $12.5 billion deal will significantly boost Google's presence in the mobile device market. Writing on the official Google blog, CEO Larry Page praised the "natural fit between [the] two companies," due in no small part to Motorola adopting Google's Android operating system across its entire range of smartphones back in 2008. Page stresses that the deal will not affect Google's treatment of Android as an open platform, and said it would also strengthen the company's patent portfolio "to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies."

A number of Android app developers have claimed that they are not receiving the correct amount of money for the number of apps that they have sold throught the Android Market. The common factor among the developers seems to be that all unaccounted for purchases were made through the Android Market's web store, with customers' credit cards apparently being charged through Google Checkout but the amount not making it to developers' accounts. Google responded officially via the Android Market support forum saying, "Thanks for posting and for your patience. We’re aware of the issue, and we’re working on fixing it. Once the fix goes out (soon!), orders should be moved to the correct state, which will enable disbursement amounts to be recovered. So if your July activity payouts were underpaid, you will be notified, and your September 1 payout will contain the missing amounts." At this time, no official date for a fix has been forthcoming, though Google has contacted affected developers by email.