Angry Birds tops 100m downloads as exec says 'tablets are killing consoles'

Peter Vesterbacka thinks the speed of iteration for slates is outgunning console, but Nokia doesn't agree.

Angry Birds has now been downloaded more than 100 million times, according to Rovio Mobile marketing exec Peter Vesterbacka, speaking on a panel at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas.

"Everyone is playing Angry Birds," said Vesterbacka, as he outlined previously known stats like the game's 40 million monthly active users, who spend 200 million minutes a day playing the game across various devices.

Talking of devices, Vesterbacka was keen to stir up some controversy at the event. "Tablets are killing consoles," he said. "Four generations of new tablets come before a new console, if one ever comes."

That's not stopping Rovio from hedging its bets, though. The company has already released Angry Birds as a downloadable game for PlayStation 3, and is planning to bring the title to other consoles later this year.

Vesterbacka was sharing a panel with Nokia's interim EVP of services Tero Ojanpera, who disagreed with his fellow Finn on the console question. According to VentureBeat, Ojanpera pointed out that people are unlikely to plug tablets into their TVs.

Although practically while he was speaking, gaming site TouchGen was proudly plugging an iPad 2 into a 50-inch LG HDTV to show off the Infinity Blade game on the big screen. Tablets are not killing consoles any time soon, but the availability of models with HDMI-out capabilities is at least presenting some intriguing competition in the living room.

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