The Windows Phone 7 platform has been largely well received by mobile developers. By giving them tools they are already familiar with and technologies they build for every day anyway, the learning curve for building Windows Phone 7 apps is pretty low.
But until now, developers whose apps have been selling on the Marketplace (WP7’s “App Store”), have not been paid. Microsoft have been eerily quiet about Windows Phone 7 sales figures (2 million at the last guess / count), and part of doing that has been keeping developers in the dark over how many copies of their app have sold, and how much revenue they will make.
This looks like it is changing, however, as Microsoft has started sending out the cheques for developers who have turned a profit on the platform. Cnet quotes one developer that the money is “ok” but not enough to start a business out of it. Other developers have complained of bias in the “featured” games, where games supporting the device’s Xbox Live features are given significant prominence over non-Xbox Live games despite the latter having better sales.
However, despite these initial minor issues, it seems developers are still genuinely optimisting about Windows Phone 7, and most seem confident that if Microsoft can deliver sales of the devices, then app sales will also come.
Comments