[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource GamesPress.]
July 5th, 2010 – Today marks a great day for both the App
Store and the Australian games development industry, and Halfbrick
has never been prouder to be a part of both! After just 74 days on
sale, Fruit Ninja has stormed past the one million copies sold
mark, solidifying its position as one of the highest rated, biggest
selling and most popular iPhone games of all time.
Fruit Ninja began as a simple gameplay concept from lead
designer Luke Muscat. During a round of game pitches that Halfbrick
conducts on a regular basis, Luke brought forth Fruit Ninja. On
October 15th 2009, the company knew that it was something special,
something that could be a huge iPhone hit with the correct
execution.
Thankfully, the fruit enthusiasts were correct! Commencing
development in early 2010, Fruit Ninja was a smooth ride, with all
the elements of visceral and juicy combat falling into place
perfectly. With continuous playtesting ensuring the gameplay
remained tight and satisfying, Fruit Ninja was released on the App
Store in its original form on April 21st, 2010 for US$0.99. In two
days it shot to the top ten paid apps in Australia, and the success
began to spread around the world. It has reached the #1 top paid
app of any kind in seven countries, and has been in the top ten USA
paid apps for 60 out of the 74 days since release, where it happily
resides to this day.
The continued support of Fruit Ninja has been modeled on regular
free updates. Five updates have been released so far to add
additional content and features based on feedback from the fans and
written reviews around the world. The team isn’t stopping at
the one million mark - there will be more updates to ensure Fruit
Ninja remains a modern, fresh and extremely fun iPhone game!
Halfbrick consists of friends and constant fun. With almost 40
employees from all walks of life working on a wide variety of
projects, the top priority is to ensure that everyone can get paid,
feed their families and continue making great games in an awesome
environment. There are no secrets, just a group of highly talented
individuals who want to provide top quality games for a worldwide
audience!
So what’s next? Fruit Ninja HD is being submitted to the
iPad app store today for release the week of July 11th, and will
expand on the current Fruit Ninja gameplay with amazing HD graphics
and two new multiplayer split screen modes. It’s the next
step to the Fruit Ninja legacy, and as per usual we are committed
to ensuring it receives the same attention with updates and new
content as the current iPhone version.
Everyone at Halfbrick would like to sincerely thank Apple, the
countless gaming websites for their coverage, the fans who wrote to
us with words of support and of course every person who purchased
the game!
www.fruitninja.com
About Halfbrick
Halfbrick is a professional game development studio based in
Brisbane, Australia. Founded in 2001, it has developed popular
titles for the Game Boy Advance, PSP, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo
DS, with expansion into XBLA, PS3 and iPhone development. For
further information, please visit
www.halfbrick.com and follow on Twitter, Youtube
and Facebook!
Press Contact/Review Codes/General Inquiries
Phil Larsen
Phone: +61 7 3356 0429
Email:
plarsen@halfbrick.com
Web:
www.halfbrick.com
Phil Larsen
Marketing Manager
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