GREE unveils plans for global gaming network

Will use assets from existing platform and recent;y-acquired Openfeint resources.

Japanese social gaming giant GREE is a monster alright, with 150 million users and 7,500 games, which will generate $1.71 billion in sales this year.

This awesome firepower was enough to see it snap up its smaller western counterpart OpenFeint for $104 million in April. In so doing it set up a battle royale with its compatriot DeNA, which bought ngmoco, and with other rivals such as Papayamobile and Playphone.

It says its new global platform will stretch across Asia and the West, and will work on both Android and iOS. Participating developers will get access to all the tools you'd expect – payment system, analytics tools and out-of-network cross-promotional opportunities.

Meanwhile gamers will get all the goodies they've come to expect from the new connected gaming world such as the ability ti buy virtual items, post achievements and join leaderboards.

The interesting thing will be to see how GREE and its rivals cope with the iOS side, given that Apple is running its own Game Center in competition and that it operates restrictions on third party games currencies.