After some controversy and a long wait, Angry Birds is finally available on Windows Phone. For those who haven’t played the most popular game since Tetris, Rovio’s Angry Birds has you slingshot colorful birds to their certain death, knocking over buildings in an attempt to kill green pigs that have taken the birds’ eggs. That’s all there is to it. The game can be downloaded now on the Windows Phone Marketplace for $2.99, a high price considering the game is free on Android and $.99 on the iPhone and iPad.
We first caught a glimpse of the game back at Microsoft’s Mix 11 conference in April, where it was announced that the game would hit virtual shelves on May 25, a day that has come and gone. So what caused the huge delay? After all, Angry Birds is already available on Google Chrome and is about to launch for the BlackBerry PlayBook. We do not know, but the game’s in-app billing (for Mighty Eagles) may have been a cause for delay.
Back in Oct. 2010, Microsoft unlawfully used the Angry Birds logo when promoting games for its upcoming Windows Phone 7, which launched in November. Rovio called the company out because Angry Birds was not available, or even in development, for Windows Phone at that time. It seems that the sides have mended ways in the months since. In that time, the game has gone from 75 million downloads to more than 200 million.