Chinese internet services giant Tencent has reported total revenues of 9.64 billion yuan ($1.53 billion) for the first quarter of 2012, up 21.8 percent quarter-over-quarter and 5.2 percent year-over-year.  Net profit for the quarter was 2.96 billion yuan ($467.7 million) up 16 percent from the company’s Q4 2011 net profit of 2.55 billion ($402.9 million).

Tencent’s revenues from mobile and telecommunications value-added services rose to 913.8 million yuan ($145.2 million), an increase of 7.0 percent quarter-over-quarter and 17.5 percent year-on-year.

While mobile revenues are still small compared to the revenue generated from Tencent’s community and open platforms (which includes QZone and Pengyou, two of the most popular social networks in China), the company has been trying to increase the importance of mobile games and apps in its business.

The company has stepped up development its own mobile titles over the past year, releasing Chinese language versions of popular titles like Instagram and Draw Something, introduced its own line of Android smartphones and signed a deal with GameSalad to bring the company’s code-free mobile app development kit to its platform.

Tencent’s shares are currently trading at 224 Hong Kong dollars ($28.84), giving the company a market capitalization of 412.83 billion Hong Kong dollars ($53.15 billion).

Google Play passes 15 billion app downloads — Google’s official Android app store, Google Play has now driven more than 15 billion app downloads over the course of its lifetime, reports TechCrunch.

Jury finds Android does infringe on Java copyrights — The jury in the two year long Google/Oracle trial over the use of Java in Android has found that Google did in fact infringe on Oracle’s copyrights. The jury was split over Google’s claim that the Android APIs should be classified under fair use, reports the Mercury News.

Rovio buys Casey’s Contraptions — Rovio has bought Snappy Touch’s Casey’s Contraptions IP. Polygon is reporting company will re-launch the game under the name Amazing Alex. In other Rovio news, the company’s hit franchise Angry Birds has now spawned over 1 billion lifetime downloads reports AllThingsD.

Konami and Namco Bandai drop Kompu Gacha — Konami and Namco Bandai are the latest Japanese game companies to drop the now illegal practice of kompu gacha from their social games according to Andriasang. For more on kompu gacha, read our feature article here.

Tapjoy launches $5 million Tapjoy Asia Fund — Tapjoy has launched a $5 million app development fund specifically to help Asian developers make free-to-play games for iOS and Android. If selected for the Tapjoy Asia Fund, developers will receive guidance, working capital and distribution through Tapjoy’s platform. The company’s previous Android Fund resulted in the development of 155 apps.

Game Center Style hubs coming to BlackBerry, Android — RIM and Google are both working on building social gaming hubs for their platforms reports Gamasutra. BlackBerry’s standalone Games app will be included with BlackBerry 10, but few details are known so far about Google’s plans for a similar service. It has been long speculated Google is looking to integrate Google+ as the social gaming layer on its Android platform.

2 million downloads for Pocket — Since rebranding from Read it Later to Pocket, content curation app Pocket has racked up over two million downloads. Users now save more than 1 million items every day, double the engagement the app was seeing before it relaunched.

Storm8 hits 300 million downloads — Independent mobile developer Storm8 has seen its suite of games pass 300 million total downloads. According to TechCrunch, the company’s games are found on over 100 million iOS and Android devices.

EA PopCap releasing new Plants vs. Zombies games in China – Plants vs. Zombies may not have been a hit on Renren, but EA PopCap isn’t giving up on China. Gamasutra reports the company is releasing two new Android versions of Plants vs. Zombies in the country on Tencent’s mobile platform. EA recently launched a Chinese version of its social game The Sims Social on Tencent’s QZone platform.

[Funding] Frenzoo raises $1 million for female-focused mobile games — Hong Kong-based Frenzoo has raised $1 million in seed funding to produce 3D fashion games for women. The funding came from Efficient Corporate, Siemer Ventures, K5 Ventures and Metaverse Services.

[Funding] DoubleDutch doubles down on $2 million Series A — Mobile enterprise platform DoubleDutch has secured a $2 million round of Series A funding. The round was lead by Bullpen Capital with participation from the Floodgate Fund, Aaron Patzer and Jawed Karim.

Chinese giant Tencent is looking to bolster its mobile content offerings by signing a deal with GameSalad, the makers of a free game development toolkit that allows non-coders to create iOS, Android and HTML5 mobile games.

Under the terms of the deal, a new Chinese language version of the GameSalad Creator tool will be integrated directly into the Tencent platform. Games created using the Tencent version of the GameSalad tool will have access to local carrier billing, social features through Tencent’s QQ Game Center and will be able to incorporate advertising from MobWin, Tencent’s in-house mobile advertising service.

Over the past year, Tencent has been trying to expand the role mobile games and apps play in its sprawling business, which already includes chat, social networking and SMS messaging services. To support this, the company has created its own versions of popular Western-developed apps like Instagram and Draw Something to bolster its mobile user base, and it even rolled out its own line of Android-based HiQQ smartphones.

The deal with GameSalad could bring thousands of new Chinese-developed games under Tencent’s umbrella. Since GameSalad’s debut in 2009, more than 300,000 developers have registered with the service and created more than 60,000 apps. With 700 million Tencent users now gaining access to the platform, that number could become a drop in the bucket.

The deal also gives the Western developers who have already made games with GameSalad Creator easy access to the Chinese market through Tencent’s mobile platform, but it’s unclear how successful a Western-developed game will be in China without significant support for translation and localization. It is worth noting however, mobile games like Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds are just as popular in China as they are in the West.

The deal puts Tencent in more direct competition with The9, the Shanghai-based company that’s been working on moving away from its PC gaming business and into operating its own mobile-social gaming platform. The9 Game Zone currently has 685 titles from 500 developers in its lineup. Tencent will also have to compete with companies like PapayaMobile and DeNA, which has been aggressively expanding its Chinese operations for a share of the growing mobile gaming market.

Tencent’s version of GameSalad Creator is currently in beta, but the tool will roll out to all Tencent users sometime this summer.

50 percent of U.S. smartphones are Androids — According to ComScore’s latest mobile subscriber report, Google’s Android is now the most popular platform with 50.1 percent market share, up from the 46.9 percent it held in November. iOS was second with 30.2 percent, up from 28.7 percent. RIM and Microsoft declined to 13.4 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively.

ODIN looking to set new UDID replacement standard –  Following Apple’s move to begin rejecting apps that use UDIDs to track users, mobile advertising companies Velti, Jumptap, RadiumOne, MdotM, StrikeAd, Smaato, Adfonic and SAY Media are teaming up to create a focus group called ODIN. According to TechCrunch, the companies are hoping push the mobile advertising industry to quickly decide on a UDID replacement. The group currently favors using a secure, hashed version of the iOS MAC address.

Zynga’s Draw Something cloned in China — With the blockbuster success of Draw Something, its not surprising others are looking to get in on the social-Pictionary action. According to Tech in Asia, the game has been cloned in China by Tencent as Guess What and MelonZone as Draw I Guess.

Diamond Dash hits 11 million downloads — The iOS version of Wooga’s Diamond Dash has been downloaded 11 million times in four months. 64 percent of iOS players log in with Facebook.

Angry Birds coming to the small screen – Rovio has revealed it is working on an Angry Birds animated series. Each of the 52 episodes will be about three minutes long, according to VentureBeat.

Indie hits coming and going from iOS — Indie games are crossing to and from mobile. Team Meat is working on a brand-new iOS version of punishingly difficult platformer Super Meat Boy, and Canadian studio Capy Games is bringing its award winning iOS game, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP to the PC via Steam.

Glu Mobile buys Deer Hunter brand – Glu Mobile has bought the trademark to Deer Hunter from Atari. Glu has been releasing mobile Deer Hunter apps for seven years, earning more than $21 million in revenue from the brand.

Windows Phone Marketplace up to 80,000 apps – All About Windows Phone reports that the Windows Phone Marketplace now has 80,000 apps, some of which may have been directly financed by Microsoft itself, according to the New York Times.

Latest version of Android OS only on 2.9 percent of Android devices — According to the latest update from Google’s Android developer platform data, Android 4.0 — aka Ice Cream Sandwich — is installed on just 2.9 percent of Android devices. The most popular Android OS is still 2.3, aka, Gingerbread, with a 63.7 percent market share.

Flurry ditches UDID in latest SDK, adds more features – Flurry has updated its iOS SDK to version 3.1.0. According to the Flurry blog, the SDK no longer collects the iOS UDID. The company has also added Funnels, Alerts and Custom Dashboards to its iOS, Android, HTML5, BlackBerry and JavaME analytics products.

Halfbrick gets in on GetJar Gold — Halfbrick is the latest developer to integrate GetJar’s GetJar Gold virtual currency. The currency, which is only available in GetJar’s independent Android app store, is based off advertising, but players can use the currency to purchase premium in-game items.

Kontagent adds new data mining tools — Kontagent has launched a new kSuite DataMine platform. The cloud-hosted tool allows developers to create detailed, custom queries in order to mine user data.

Samsung launching own mobile ad network — Samsung is partnering with OpenX Technologies to create its own mobile advertising network, reports the Wall Street Journal. The as-yet-unnamed network will launch in the second half of the year.

[Funding] The Tap Lab untaps $550,000 — Cambridge-based The Tap Lap has raised $550,000 in investment funds to work on location based games and its own location-based game engine.

[Launch] MocoSpace debuts HTML-based True Night — HTML5 gaming platform MocoSpace has launched its thirty third HTML5 game, the vampire themed True Night. It was developed by New Game Town.

Just how much money are virtual currency “black card” scams costing Chinese iOS developers? The Chinese Anti-Black Card Alliance has stopped more than $1.5 million USD in fraudulent transactions in just six months.

Black card scams, so named because they use fake or stolen credit card numbers, operate mainly on Taobao — China’s eBay equivalent. Sellers on the site offer virtual currency at a steep discount, often 50 percent off the actual value. The currency is bought on iTunes accounts attached to fake or stolen credit card numbers from outside China, and then transferred to the buyer’s game.

These scams are the reason it’s increasingly common to see Chinese apps with no English language support on the upper reaches of the U.S. top grossing apps charts. Once Apple filters out fraudulent payments from a developer’s earnings, as much as 50 percent of a company’s revenues can vanish. Beijing-based Hoolai lost over $300,000 in one month alone due to the scams.

This is why CocoaChina, also known as Chukong/PunchBox, created the Anti-Black Card alliance last October. Made up of some of the biggest developers in China, the group’s member 14 companies include the likes of Kongzhong, Haypi, WiStone and Gameloft’s Chinese studios. The group employs a full-time employee just to monitor Taobao for fraudulent listings connected to games from the Alliance’s member companies and any apps published by CocoaChina. Since starting the program, the Alliance has issued more than 1,000 takedown requests, which has translated into Taobao removing over 30,000 listings.

With the sheer number of fraudulent listings, it’s hard to measure the true financial impact, but according to Lei Zhang, the U.S. general manager of CocoaChina/Chukong. Most listings were for the highest tier of in-app purchase, with average costs ranging from $49.99 to $99.99 each. At 30,000 listings, one can conservatively estimate the anti-black card alliance has shut down more than $1.5 million in fraudulent transactions.

Although the are time and resource intensive, the Alliance’s efforts are paying off. Members have seen their fraudulent transactions drop by 80 to 90 percent and one game even saw a 30 percent revenue increase after the alliance began. While Zhang couldn’t disclose the title of that game due to Apple’s restrictions, he did tell us the game has gone from earning about $38,500 a month to $50,000 a month.

The alliance also now has a special relationship with Taobao. Although the company’s standard policy is to remove fraudulent listings 15 days after a complaint in order to assess the claim, Taobao now removes any listings reported by the Alliance within 24 hours.

“This is a problem that involves loopholes of the entire ecosystem, beginning from the relatively easy access to fraudulent credit cards,” explains Zhang. “It’s not fair to portray Taobao as one of the main causes of this issue or even part of the scheme, they are in fact an active and important part of the solution.”

While Taobao may have the ignoble honor of being the most popular place for black card scams, it’s also not the only destination for fraudulent players. According to Zhang, Tencent’s Paipai.com (a Taobao competitor) also has similar listings, and there are still plenty of black card scams conducted off the easily monitored e-commerce sites.

All this means Chinese developers may still be losing millions of dollars in revenue every year, all while they’re still on the hook for the server and hosting costs of the fraudulent players. An article on the CocoaChina website states that some Chinese developers have reported more than 88 percent of their revenues turned out to be bad debts related to the scams. According to Zhang, the only way to truly stop the black card scams is an absolute crackdown — which is of course, easier said than done.

Because Apple doesn’t share detailed user payment information with developers, it’s extremely difficult to sort out legitimate users from fakes. Hoolai, which saw its game 胡莱三国 (Hoolai Three Kingdom) hit No. 10 on the U.S. top grossing app charts at the end of February, has tried to build algorithms to identify what it calls “strange payments,” but it largely comes down to guesswork.

Still, the best approach may be harsh penalties, even if developers aren’t able apply them universally. “Game operators need to clearly convey a message of zero-tolerance for fraud payment to players,” says Zhang. “This is especially important for MMOs and other high lifetime value games. [They need to decline] features or content to fraudulent players.”

DeNA news roundup — It’s been a busy week for Japanese gaming giant DeNA.

The company has announced a new deal with Disney Japan to launch three Disney-branded games. The games are scheduled to come to North America sometime this summer. The games, which are based on Disney’s original characters and the Marvel superheroes brand, will be the first titles jointly developed by DeNA to be released outside of North America.

In other DeNA news, it also announced this week it has signed deals with all three of China’s major mobile carriers: China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. China Mobile subscribers will now see Mobage transactions showing up on their monthly phone bill. China Unicom and China Telecom will be rolling out carrier billing for Mobage by the summer. All three carriers (with a combined customer base of 976 million customers) now offer Mobage games in their Android app stores.

Apple products in 51% of US homes — According to a survey conducted by CNBC, 51 percent of American households have at least one Apple product. The average US home holds 1.6 Apple devices, with nine percent of home reporting more than five apple products.

RIM announces major restructuring — Following a disappointing earnings report, Canadian smartphone maker RIM has announced it is refocusing on enterprise. As part of the effort, several senior executives are on the way out. Former co-CEO Jim Balsillie has left the company and Mashable is reporting the company’s COO and CTO have also departed.

Angry Birds Space hits 10 million downloads in three days — Angry Birds Space has been a big hit, racking up 10 million downloads worldwide in its first three days, reports Develop.

Level-5 Signs Deal with GREE – Professor Layton publisher Level-5 has signed a deal with GREE that will see three games from the company come to the GREE platform in the second quarter of this year.

Rovio buys Futuremark Games, hiring for Swedish office — Rovio has purchased game developer Futuremark Games for an undisclosed sum, reports TechCrunch. The company is also opening a studio in Sweden, according to a job posting on the company’s website for a general manger. Rovio is aiming to hire between 20 and 30 employees in Sweden. The company established a Shanghai studio last year.

Bump gets into mobile payments – Contact and photo-sharing app Bump has released a new app called Bump Pay. Powered by PayPal, the standalone app allows users to transfer funds between smartphones.

Outfit7 partners with Autism Speaks — Outfit7 has partnered with Autism advocacy organization Autism Speaks to promote Autism Awareness Month through the Light It Up Blue Campaign. For a limited time, users of Outfit7’s Talking Tom app on iOS and Android will be able to download a virtual Light It Up Blue shirt for Tom.

Aeria Games launches mobile division — Santa-Clara based Aeria Games has launched a mobile spin division called Aeria Mobile. The company’s first three games will be Tuff Tanks, Eden Eternal Monster Hunter and Armygeddon. Tuff Tanks is being developed by Swedish developer Junebud.

The Dark Meadow gets a free-to-play version — Phosphor Games has released a free-to-play version of its critically acclaimed iPad game Dark Meadow called Dark Meadow: The Pact. The free version of the game will launch on Android next month.

[Launch] Fitocracy comes out of beta with iOS app — Social Fitness startup Fitocracy has come out of beta. To celebrate, the company has released an iPhone app, one of the features most requested by the service’s users.

Consumers prefer to buy iPhones in person — A new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners found that 76 percent of people buying iPhones purchase them from brick-and-mortar stores. According to the study, iPhone sales break down as follows:

• AT&T – 32%
• Verizon – 30%
• Apple – 15%
• Best Buy – 13%
• Sprint – 7%
• Other – 3%

Angry Birds Space is coming to Windows Phone — Angry Birds Space has been a big hit on iOS and Android so far, but initially it looked like the game wouldn’t be coming to Windows Phone, a move that Bloomberg called “a blow to the platform.” However, according to Pocket Gamer, Rovio has confirmed it is working on a port of the title for Windows Phone.

Second Humble Bundle comes to Android – Charity fundraiser the Humble Indie Bundle released another Android compatible bundle. The bundle, which is available here, includes Cogs, Zen Bound 2, Canabalt, Avadon: The Black Fortress and Swords and Soldiers. So far more than 76,000 bundles have been sold, with all proceeds going toward the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play.

Mobile games played at home — A new study from MocoSpace shows the most popular place to play a mobile game is at home. Of MocoSpace players surveyed, 96 percent indicated they played mobile games at home. The most popular place to play at home was in bed with 53 percent of respondents indicating they play while under the covers.

DeNA partners with Coconut Island — DeNA announced a partnership with yet another Chinese company as it expands into China. The firm announced this week it has partnered with game developer Coconut Island. From now on, all the company’s games in China will be on DeNA’s Mobage platform, reports Pocket Gamer.

Juniper Research: tablet revenues to pass $3.1 billion by 2014 – A new study from Juniper Research predicts worldwide revenues from tablet games will reach $3.1 billion by 2014, and will account for 30 percent of all mobile gaming revenue. The report also singled out tablet gamers as more likely to spend money on games and in-game items, a finding backed up by developers like Game Insight, who have reported their games monetize better on tablets than on smartphones.

Instagram + Hipstamatic = <3 — Rival photography apps Instagram and Hipstamatic have put their differences aside and formed a partnership that will allow Hipstamatic’s four million monthly users to share their photos on Instagram reports Fast Company.

Path cloned in China — Startup social network Path has had its entire look stolen by a Chinese app called Daka, reports Tech in Asia. Unlike Path, Daka focuses on following celebrities, but the two apps look identical. Daka was developed by Chinese video streaming site LeTV.

PlayPhone buys SocialHour for $51.5 million — PlayPhone has bought mobile marketing firm SocialHour for $51.5 million in stock. The move will bolster PlayPhone’s mobile-social network. The company also unveiled its new InstaMultiplay technology, which allows players to connect cross-platform within a quarter of a second.

More devs leave traditional games industry to create mobile studios – Gamasutra is reporting two new mobile studios have been founded by ex-console developers. Gael Giraudeau and Nicolas Godement-Berline have left Arkane Studios to form Majaka, which will be headquartered in Paris, France. Meanwhile Lady Shotgun Games has been formed by former Tomb Raider designers Anna Marsh and Sarah van Rompaey.

GREE partners with Dentsu — GREE has announced a marketing partnership deal with Dentsu. The company is one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world and will help promote GREE as it expands out of Japan. Dentsu will also advise GREE on content acquisition and potential investments.

Kiip brings real rewards to non-game apps – Developers of any type of app are now able to incorporate Kiip’s rewards into their products. According to TechCrunch, the service now gives away more than 5 rewards a second and reaches more than 30 million users.

Halfbrick buys Onan Games — Fruit Ninja developer Halfbrick has acquired Onan Games, best known for its multi-platform development tool Mandreel. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Gumi expands to the U.S. — Japanese game developer Gumi is expanding to the U.S., appointing a senior executive manager for its new foreign business segment, reports Serkan Toto. The company is one of the most successful third-party developers on GREE.

New iPad sells 3 million first weekend — Apple has sold more than 3 million new iPads in the first weekend of the device’s availability. “The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold — the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Apple VP of Worldwide Marketing Philip Schiller in a statement. Investment banking firm Piper Jaffray estimates Apple will sell as many as 66 million new iPads in 2012. Meanwhile the new iPhoto app that was unveiled with the new iPad now has more than one million users, reports The Loop.

The9’s Chinese social-mobile gaming platform The9 Game Zone now has 685 titles from 500 developers in its roster, and will offer players more than 1000 games by the end of the year.

Originally a PC gaming company that licensed and ran massively multiplayer online games in China, the company established its mobile business in 2010 after losing the highly lucrative World of Warcraft license. The company set up The9 Game Zone in April 2011, licensing OpenFeint to power the platform. Still in what vice president Chris Shen calls “a very strategic phase,” most of the Shanghai-based company’s revenue — $16.9 million in 2011 for a net loss of $45.2 million for the year — still comes from PC gaming.

The mobile side of the business is growing, however.

According to Shen, The9’s mobile division now employs 15 percent of the company’s 1000 person-strong workforce, and is built around three key strategies.

First is the The9 Game Zone itself as a mobile-social network and marketing tool for the company’s roster of games. Shen did not reveal the network’s total user numbers, but did say it has doubled its userbase every two months since it was launched. Next there is  桔子 (Juzi) or in English, Orange, which is the platform’s in-game advertising service. Described by Shen as similar to Tapjoy, it serves both traditional ads and incentivized installs.

Finally, and most importantly, are the games themselves. Acting as part developer, part publisher and part service business, The9 develops its own games for the platform and provides what Shen calls a one-stop solution for Western developers looking to enter into the Chinese market. Of the 685 games The9 Game Zone offers, half are from western developers.

“We do the localization, repackage the games, integrate the required SDKs, promote and market them. We work with developers case by case on how they can monetize in China and distribute them to more than 50 app stores,” he says.

The9 typically splits revenues with developers 50/50, but each deal depends on the specific negotiations with the developer, and how many of the company’s services are used. The more work The9 does to bring the title to market, the higher its share of the revenue.

Although there are now more than 1 billion mobile phones in China, determining how to monetize a game in a highly fractured market where users don’t have a history of paying for mobile content is by far the hardest part of entering the Chinese market, according to Shen.

“It’s a market with a lot of potential, but its also very risky. There are a lot of issues – many app stores, piracy, figuring out how to monetize a game,” he explains. “For Western developers, its important to have a partner like The9 to help provide these solutions.”

However, The9 isn’t the only company seeing the benefits of China’s booming mobile gaming market. Competition comes from homegrown competitors like Tencent and PapayaMobile, and from offshore competitors like DeNA, which has been busy in China. In the past four months, DeNA has announced deals with Huawei, Baidu, NetDragon, Kaixin001 and Weibo to promote its Mobage platform. However, according to Shen, the interest in the Chinese mobile-social gaming market is actually a good thing — for now.

“I think the ecosystem in China is still in a situation where we all need to work together to grow the market — to make sure there’s good content, payment solutions, ways to fight piracy, to monetize and to work with government regulations,” he explains. “We need to work together to do that now. In the future there will be competition.”

Chinese gaming company The9 has reported a net loss of $45.2 million for the 2011 fiscal year, a 43 percent decrease over the company’s 2010 net loss of $76.3 million. Its overall loss in the third and fourth quarters was $34.9 million, up 240% from the first half of the year, when the company reported an $11.7 million loss.

The company attributed the loss to an increase in marketing expenses for its game Firefall, as well as increased research, development and headcount expenses due to the establishment of overseas offices.

The9’s net revenues improved in its third and fourth quarters, increasing to $8.7 million, up 7 percent from its earnings in the first half of the year, but down slightly as compared to same time last year. Overall the company’s net revenues for 2011 were $16.9 million, up year-over-year from 2010’s reported net revenues of $15.4 million.

The company has struggled to find its footing since losing the extremely lucrative Chinese license for World of Warcraft in 2010. The company is currently expanding its mobile operations, creating its own mobile-social network called The9 Game Zone that uses GREE’s OpenFeint platform and launching a mobile gaming fund worth $100 million with Chengwei Ventures, ChinaRock Capital Management and China Renaissance K2 Ventures. The company also recently inked a deal to run Sony’s Chinese PlayNow app store.

According to its balance sheet, The9 still has more than $170.2 million in cash and equivalents on hand, slightly more than its market cap of $168.3 million. In trading today, the company’s shares dropped 4.42 percent to $6.70 each.

Apple Hits 25 billion downloads — Apple’s App Store has now passed 25 billion downloads. The 25 billionth app was the Lite version of Disney’s Where’s My Water, downloaded by Chinese customer Chunli Fu, reports Pocketgamer.

GDC attendance up 17 percent — The 2012 Game Developer’s Conference set a new attendance record, attracting more than 22,500 attendees, up 17 percent year-on-year. Unlike previous years, mobile and social developers were a large presence at the event, with companies like GREE and Wooga well represented with prominent sponsorships.

Capcom expects 50 percent of revenue to come from digital within five years — Capcom is planning to see digitally distributed games make up the bulk of its profits and revenues by 2017, reports Gamasutra. The outlet interviewed Capcom’s SVP Christian Svensson at GDC last week, who revealed the company expects to move away from a retail-dependent model.

DeNA signs Chinese partnership to bring Mobage to Weibo – DeNA continues its push into China, signing a deal with SINA, the operator of Weibo.com, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter. All Weibo members will now be able to log into DeNA’s Mobage network using their existing Weibo accounts. Weibo will also add a link to the Mobage platform inside its Android app.

iSwifter brings PC game streaming to mobile — Menlo Park-based iSwifter now supports live streaming of both PC and flash games to iOS and Android devices.

Big Fish Games buys Self Aware Games, revenues up 30 percent year-on-year — Seattle’s Big Fish Games announced last week its revenues are up 30 percent year-on-year, the ninth year in a row its revenues have increased. The company also announced it acquired Oakland-based Self Aware Games. The purchase amount was not disclosed.

Microsoft, Onlive in licensing dispute over OnLive Desktop apps — Microsoft has come out on record, stating that OnLive’s Desktop apps, which allow users to stream Microsoft office to iPads and Android tablets break its terms of service. OnLive has refused to comment on the matter.

China Mobile passes 15 million iPhone customers — China Mobile now has 15 million customers with iPhones, even though the company’s 3G network does not yet support the iPhone, reports Tech in Asia.

Draw Something passes 20 million downloads — OMGPOP’s breakout mobile hit Draw Something has now been downloaded more than 20 million times, reports Business Insider. The app is generating daily revenues in the six-figure range, according to OMGPOP’s CEO Dan Porter.

Apple pushes back new iPad shipment dates — Apple has pushed back the shipment date for the new iPad from Mar. 16 to Mar. 19 in the US and delayed UK and Canadian shipping estimates to “2 to 3 weeks”.  While this likely indicates Apple’s online store is sold out of the devices, retail shops will still have the device on the original Mar. 16 date, reports The Next Web.

Kontagent reports 500 percent revenue growth year-on-year — Kontagent is reporting its revenues increased 5-fold in 2011. The company’s analytics platform now reaches 150 million monthly active users in more than 1000 apps.

Crytek gets into mobile games with physics puzzler — Crytek, the developer largely known for its first-person shooter titles and its high-end CryEngine platform, has revealed its first mobile game will be a physics puzzler called Fibble Flick Rock ‘n’ Roll, according to Pocket Gamer.

2012 Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Choice Awards winners announced – Canadian developer Capy Games has won the award for best Handheld/Mobile Game at the Game Developers Choice Awards, taking home the prize for its game Sword & Sworcery EP. Simogo’s Beat Sneak Bandit was awarded the prize of Best Mobile Game at the Independent Games Festival. Both awards were given out last week at the GDC.

[Funding] Tap.Me closes $3.2 million in funding – Mobile app monetization company Tap.Me has closed a $3.2 million dollar round of funding lead by Hyde Park Ventures. The company has also added industry vet Jeffrey Lapin (Atari, Take-Two Interactive, THQ) to its board of directors and signed up Canadian developer Fluik, makers of the Office Jerk series of apps.