Jetpack Joyride Developer Acquires Cross-Platform Porting Technology
March 20, 2012
It won't be long before Jetpack Joyride flies and breaks into Android, Windows Phone, Ovi, Facebook and other gaming platforms.
Halfbrick Studios, the Australia-based developer of the aforementioned iOS game, announced that it had acquired Onan Games. A company based in Valencia, Spain, Onan Games is responsible for Mandreel, a technology that offers cross-platform conversion options for electronic games using only their C++ code bases. With the acquisition of a dedicated porting framework, Halfbrick looks set to bring its highly rated games, not the least of which is the currently iOS-only Jetpack Joyride, to other platforms.
"Onan has created something that is incredibly powerful in such a fast-paced industry," said Halfbrick CEO Shainiel Deo. "It's our goal to maximize reach and bring our games to new fans, and we welcome Onan into the Halfbrick family knowing that they will help us achieve exactly that." Halfbrick's earlier iOS hit, Fruit Ninja, has already been ported to Android and other mobile platforms, no doubt using Mandreel.
Although Mandreel is now owned by Halfbrick, the company has expressed its intention to license the technology to other developers in the near future. For now, though, the next logical step is to bring Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride to Facebook and to the Flash- and HTML5-enabled Web.