Speaking to Sandhya Raman and Fierce Mobile Content, Glu Mobile's CEO Niccolo De Masi talks in-depth about mobile gaming, and addresses the future of technologies including Windows Phone. While Android and iOS are still primary mobile branches in their developer chain, they also are bullish on Windows Phone 8. Why? As De Masi says "...I find it hard to believe that the three largest technology companies in the world, Apple, Google and Microsoft, will not be very significant market share leaders in the smartphone and frankly the laptop, tablet, living room platform wars."

Glu Mobile have certainly been active in the Windows Phone gaming, with a number of Xbox Live titles. One of their previous releases, Bug Village (reviewed here) explored the freemium space of gaming, where the code is a free download, as is the playing experience, but that experience can be enhanced through micropayments and in-game billing. From the review:

Bug Village is an important game for Xbox Live - it's a new genre that's proved successful on other platforms, from social networks and websites to tablets and smartphones. Proving that the concept and user base will accept a freemium model will give others the confidence to get involved and bring some fresh thinking and mechanics to a freemium game on an always connected social device.

In the end though, it comes down to money. De Masi again:

Things that make it in the top 50 grossing are successful; maybe even things in the top 75 are probably successful at peak. For a company like us that can put out 23 new games in 2012, and also have a half a dozen games from 2011 we're still supporting and generating success from, that's the first tier of success you're looking for. We don't green light anything that doesn't have the opportunity to be top 10 grossing game.

The full interview is at Fierce Mobile Content.