Looking to outdo games on the iPhone, Google is making a push to recruit game developers to make games for the Android operating system.
Google announced today that it will give away free Nexus One and Verizon Droid phones to thousands of game developers who attend the Game Developers Conference starting March 9 in San Francisco. (The developers have to register for the event by Feb. 4 to qualify).
This reminds me of the time when Microsoft, seeking to get developers to make games for the Xbox game console, offered free high-definition TVs to game developers. It’s a recognition that games are a critical part of any mobile platform.
The iPhone has been a smash hit in part because its touchscreen and tilt controls make a great game device. Roughly a fifth of the 125,000 apps on the iPhone are games, and games dominate the bestseller list for the AppStore.
Apple is aware of this as well. The GDC will have an iPhone Games Summit aimed at developers. So the conference will be a battleground of sorts for the hearts and minds of mobile game developers. Since Apple has around 60 million iPhones and iPod Touch handhelds in the market, and since those users play and buy a lot of games, it has the advantage. While Google is gaining traction with Android, it’s having a hard time catching up on apps. Gameloft, for instance, announced in November it would scale back its Android game efforts because it wasn’t getting much traction. As Android grows, that problem will go away.
Check out our own games event, GamesBeat@GDC, on March 10 at the Game Developers Conference. [Disclosure: VentureBeat is a partner with the Game Developers Conference on GamesBeat@GDC].