Words with Friends and DrawSomething coming to Windows Phone this Fall

By Seth Brodeur
published

Gaming news coming out of the Windows Phone Summit is that Zynga's long-anticipated Words With Friends and DrawSomething, by newly-acquired OMGPOP, are finally coming to Windows Phone. The two social games have been loved on iPhone and Android for some time and will make their way to Windows Phone sometime this fall.

There's no exact release date for either, but we're already wasting time at work thinking about it.

Update: See the full Nokia press release after the break

Zynga brings Words With Friends and Draw Something to Nokia Lumia and Windows Phone Espoo, Finland - Nokia and Zynga announce a new partnership to bring Zynga's hit games to Nokia Lumia smartphones and Windows Phones during autumn 2012, including Words With Friends and Draw Something. For a two-month period following launch, the titles will be available only through 'Nokia Collection' to Nokia consumers, after which both games will be made available to all Windows Phone consumers via Marketplace.The announcement underlines Nokia's focus on delivering great, exclusive app and gaming experiences to Nokia Lumia consumers around the world. With 100,000 apps available today in Windows Phone Marketplace, Zynga's Words With Friends and Draw Something will join other great mobile gaming experiences available on the Windows Phone platform.After launching in February 2012, Draw Something quickly and organically grew to become an international hit. The game is built for collaboration between friends -- one player draws a picture of a chosen word and the other must guess the word correctly before taking their turn at drawing. Players earn coins by guessing pictures correctly and can earn new shades of color to draw even brighter, more eye-popping pictures. Draw Something recently launched in 12 additional languages. At its launch, Draw Something for Windows Phone will be available in Traditional and Simplified Chinese as well as English.Words With Friends is a word building game that challenges players to create the highest-scoring words while playing against family and friends or random opponents. Players can be engaged in up to 20 games at once and are able to communicate with each other through an in-game chat feature. Words With Friends is a part of the With Friends franchise of mobile social games by Zynga."We're delighted to bring these two key games to Nokia Lumia and Windows Phone consumers. The Windows Phone Metro UI will deliver an outstanding user experience to consumers, adding more great gaming titles to our rapidly growing portfolio from leading publishers," said Bryan Biniak, VP, Global Partnering & Application Development, Nokia."Zynga focuses on bringing fun, social, and high-quality mobile social games across platforms and devices so players can enrich their play anywhere and anytime," said David Ko, Chief Mobile Officer for Zynga. "We constantly strive to listen to our players who help us focus on the platforms where they want to play. By partnering with top global brands such as Nokia and Windows Phone, we are able to reach more players with our franchise games."

Seth Brodeur
Seth Brodeur
55 Comments
  • WP8 or WP7.8 ? :P
  • Exactly.  I hope they will be fore Windows Phone 7.5 and 7.8 users.  As Nokia has a large Windows Phone userbase, it would be in their best interest to be developing these for current gen (WP7.5/7.8) devices.
  • Probably the best news for getting people onto the platform, because that's the reason why most people tell me they aren't willing to try out a Windows Phone. Even though there are already pretty decent alternatives.
  • Not buying a brand of a phone because it doesn't have words with friends it terrible. Your "friends" must be 14 and under.
  • You would be suprises. I consider the mid-20 to mid-30 yr old people I associate with to be pretty mature and level-headed, but they come up with the stupidest reasons to not look at windows phone. And it mostly revolves around games that they play for a few weeks, then never use again.
  • That's true for now, but nobody knows what the landscape will look like in the fall. I'm not a developer but I would think this app could be ported in less than 3 months time.
  • zzzzz old and busted...
    I think draw something is dead already..
     
  • I still play Draw-Together quite often with my friends and family.  I believe there's even going to be a game show based off of it.  (That sounds silly and I doubt it'll last very long.)
  • Yeah, there's some truth behind that. It's been a couple of weeks since I haven't seen any of my Fb friends talking about that. Now, they're crazy with SongPop, whatever that is.
    I pray for the day when Windows Phone will have the hipster games and apps at the same time that when they debut on iOS/Android.
  • FINALLY!!!!!!
  • The bigger question will be, "will it work with 7.8 devices?
  • I hope
  • Good but should be released by july so that people don't get bored of them even before they arrive.
  • Yay!!
  • Too late...
  • Regardless of whether these apps are old or not, I welcome them because the more the merrier. Plus these types of apps are what make or break sales for newcomers to the platform.
  • I say boycott any app that doesn't take the WP7 user base seriously from the being.
  • That'd be a foolish way to keep apps people want from other platforms away from WP.
  • "This fall." Probably when WP8 comes out, because they'll be WP8 apps. WP7.8 users will get nothing.
     
  • Too bad all my friends stopped playing them.... We missed the boat on that one, as per usual. :(
  • Me too, but hopefully this is a sign that the new "it" game from zynga will come out sooner.
  • Just in time for both games fan base on other platforms to be bored with it.
  • Will the WP version of this game allow you to play with/against users playing the iOS/Android version?
  • Certainly.
  • Read between the lines: "Coming this fall", meaning only to Windows Phone 8 devices.
  • Except it says to 'Lumia devices' meaning Lumia 610, 710, 800 and 900
  • And that's what you get for not reading everything.  There is no mention of just WP8, but there is mention of Lumia phones - Oh hang on, they are on WP7!!!!
  • Why would they just release it for wp8 when most of the WP users are on wp7x devices and a wp7x ver will run on wp8 as well? Kill all birds with one stone.
  • Say what you will about whether or not these games are still popular, its still nice that they are finally coming to the platform. I got bored with Draw Something after a while (but only because the people I was playing with keep on using words rather than doing what the game is named: draw something, lol). As for Words With Friends, it was hard to keep up with because I didn't check my iPod Touch constantly. So I would wait days to make a move and people would resign. Now, I play on Facebook. With it coming to WP, it will now be on a device I carry with me everywhere. And there are a great number of my friends who still play the game. Carrying on about 5 or 6 games as we speak. 
  • All of Zynga's games rely on in-app purchasing for monetisation. The likely reason they were not offered on Windows Phone until now is that Windows Phone didn't have support for in-app purchases until now.
    However, Microsoft says that in-app purchases will only be coming to Windows Phone 8, so I'd say the chances of these games coming to Lumia 610, 710, 800 or 900 are slim to zero.
  • Miniclip games currently support in-app purchases. Put it this way, if Zynga are aiming to extend their reach why on earth would they make it so that 7.5/7.8 devices couldn't play the game and only brand new (rather low) user base of WP8 could play it?
  • Another middle finger to early adopter WP fans. I feel sorry for all the Lumia 900 buyers who's phones will be obsolete 4 or 5 months after they bought them.
  • People who Lumia 900's were noobs, hackers, or just looking for a good deal. They'll be satisfied until something about WP8 compels them to break their contracts. I waited because I knew what was coming...and I wasn't up for renewal until July 2012...
  • I disagree. I think they were ppl who took a chance on WP and they're going to feel like they got the short end of the stick. I suspect Nokia or MS will offer some kind of trade in incentive for them.
  • Umm, why!!! There is an update coming later this year (7.8) to give current WP7 phones WP8 based updates, there is nothing mentioned about what will be included except the start screen, and obviously won't include any hardware specific features - These wouldn't work anyway because the devices don't have the required hardware.And also, WP is going to be 2 years old when WP8 finally comes out, so it isn't really giving a middle finger to early adopters at all!!
  • That's fine with me still got my original focus mow lets hope Nokia wp8 has an sd then im sold, it'll look nice along side my W8 Pro Surface team windows is taking over yet again
  • I enjoy Words by Post more. Cleaner interface.
  • Agree, its a better app all around except the graphics are a little lacking
  • Don't care about Words with Friends: Wordament is my favorite word game...because we WP7 users have been ignored for so long by many of the multiplatform/popular app developers.
  • Wordament rules
  • So only for lumia phones again and (possibly) only for WP 8? Not sounding like a great strategy Microsoft. I applaud Nokia, they are in it to win it. But if this trend continues where they get exclusive games first, this could hurt MS. I hope I'm wrong though...
  • And again, this is what happens with only partial reading.  Exclusive to Lumia for 2 months, and then available to the whole market place - and I would say definitely for WP7, not lmited to WP8
  • By the time they come out the craze will be over. That's ridiculous.
  • But now the developer is on the WP train. Hopefully that means future games will be launched at/around the same time on both platforms
  • Games are already on the downturn I think, but im excited for WP8 lot of good things to come
  • Nice to know the time we get it everyone would have stopped using it for like 3 months already :P but two months for Nokia exclusive eugh..
  • Finally damn.
  • its nice that these are on its way. but it will be too late. these apps for iOS are already on the downturn. they were hot for a while and specifically draw something but not nearly now. the true test for WP8 is when the next hot app for iOS comes out and see if WP8 gets included right away. not several months down the line when no one really care about it anymore.
  • Kinda late in the game but hopefully that means WP will be on the bar more with the apps to be able to ride the trend while they are still high.
  • I'm over them. Thousands of people wanted to get words with friends and draw something but seems like zanga didn't give a $#%&. There all about money, not satisfaction. So I say boycott the greedy bastards!
  • Wordament FTW!!
  • Too late
  • Finally!
  • Still no release :)
  • Unfortunatly, BOTH of these games are BROKEN (at least on Nokia 920 running Windows Phone 8)
    Words with friends will freeze and crash the phone, often when using the messaging function during a game, the screen will be stuck "on" and no buttons work - the only way I found to get out of this problem is to hold volume down + power button together untill it goes off.
    Draw something won't "crash" the phone, but you'll be playing and your friend will solve your drawing succesfully, but on your screen it will show the letters guessed falling into place, except the last letter, it will never fall into place and thus the game cannot continue.  The terrible interface also has no way to end a game or start a new one so your just "stuck"
    Terrible "ports" of these games :-(