Glu top man, Greg Ballard has stated that the company is excited by the prospects of new mobile gaming platforms in the coming year, including iPhone, Android, N-Gage, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. 

He is quoted as saying, “We expect that these phones will generate more revenue per phone than current and past devices have.  

“Second, we believe these devices are even better and more engaging game experiences and they will provide a better and more seamless user experience… Finally, these new handset platforms will have a positive ripple effect on other companies.” 

Ballard praised LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson for their quick response to the touchscreen iPhone, with their own touchscreen models. 

Glu plan to take advantage of these developments: “We do have significant internal efforts underway to support the initial launch of both iPhone and Android,” he added. “You can expect that we will be measured but aggressive in our efforts. But again, we think that this is more likely to be an ‘09 story than an ‘08 story.”  

Ballard went on to say that the quality offered by Android and iPhone will rival the Nintendo DS. “Technologically it’s going to be right on top of it.
“I think it’s going to be to a large extent up to publishers and developers to find out how much we can do with these new platforms. In my mind, a year from now people won’t be talking about the DS and the… iPhone and Android experiences being substantially different from each other.”
Glu reported $20.9 million of revenues in the first quarter, which is up 31 percent on last year. The company predicts around $23.5 – 24 million revenue from the next quarter, spearheaded by their Speed Racer game. 

Unfortunatley the prospects could be damaged somewhat by the battering the game has received by critics and the fact that the movie it’s based on was a gigantic flop. Ballard is convinced this won’t be the case.  

“Obviously the box office performance in the weekend was not what everybody expected Speed Racer to do, so we are watching it closely,” adding, . “Speed Racer is obviously a racing game as well as a movie game. We expect it will do well even if the box office ends up being a little bit less stellar than we originally planned.”

Glu is hoping the upcoming Wedding Dash and Ice Age: Mammoth Mayhem branded games will be hits this quarter. However, the publisher is also pretty chirpy about own-IP games, which accounted for 20 per cent of its revenues in the first quarter.

The publisher reckons its revenues for 2008 as a whole will top $100 million.