Angry Birds coming to Nintendo Wii, 3DS

Rovio Mobile, the developers of the wildly successful Angry Birds series of games previously only available on mobile phones, has already developed ports for the game on non-mobile phone platforms, including the PlayStation Portable hand held system and a version available on the PlayStation 3. Rovio has also ported the game to Microsoft Windows available exclusively in the Intel App Up center and a version playable on Mac computers through download in the Mac App Store. Now it appears that the game could be heading to the Nintendo Wii and the upcoming Nintendo 3DS.

On Saturday, February 5, 2011 Rovio tweeted on their Twitter account that versions for the Wii and 3DS would be coming "later in the year," but since then the specific tweet has been removed from their stream. Despite the removal of the specific tweet Rovio continues to respond to questions from fans of the game regarding whether or not the 3DS port will be in 3D, to which they will not share any more information. What HULIQ has learned though is that Rovio prefers to use a digital download approach to sharing the game as opposed to offering a hard copy in retail stores. Rovio also confirmed that they would bring all three current versions of the Angry Birds games over to the Nintendo software rather than design any unique levels for the Nintendo systems.

The idea of bringing Angry Birds to the console systems is one that has been floating around since November when Rovio chief executive Peter Vesterbacka informed BBC that a version of the game was in development for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.

No release date for Angry Birds on the Wii or 3DS was made available by Rovio. Nintendo plans to release the 3DS system to the public on March 27, 2011.

Angry Birds is an addictive puzzle game in which players must fling a variety of birds with different abilities using a slingshot in to a stack of wood blocks, ice, stones and more and try to break them and squash enemy pigs placed throughout the level. The game was initially released to iPhone users and quickly grew in popularity and soared up the App Store download charts. Due to the success of the game on the iPhone Rovio was inspired to make the game available to more mobile phone users and an Android version in September, followed by a Nokia version in October, were released. In addition Rovio has also released an HD-version of the game available on the iPad, which was released at the same time as the iPad.

Rovio will also continue development of a version of Angry Birds for Microsoft Windows Phone 7 hardware. Rovio has not announced a release date for this version but is committed to bringing the game to Windows Phone users in 2011.

On Monday Rovio released a special Valentine's Day edition of Angry Birds, which includes levels previously released for Halloween and Christmas and is packaged as the updated version of Angry Birds Seasons. It is available on mobile platforms and on the iPad in an HD version.

Image source: Partial screen shot