BlackBerry's future in games gets a little bleaker

When talking about mobile games, Apple, Google and Windows Phone are the main talking points. But the ailing BlackBerry was still determined to make games a focus for its devices. That could change in the near future, as today, Blackberry said it agreed to be acquired by a consortium led by BlackBerry stakeholder Fairfax Financial Holdings in a transaction worth $4.7 billion. Fairfax's plan is to take Blackberry private, and the company will switch its focus away from the game-friendly consumer market, dominated by iOS and Android, and direct resources towards business-minded enterprise customers. Blackberry recognized that if it wanted to compete in the consumer market, it needed support from game developers in order to fill out a game library. It had been taking steps to make BlackBerry 10 easy for game developers to bring their games to, even if a BlackBerry device isn't the primary platform for their games. We had been talking to BlackBerry amid their massive job cuts last week, which saw 4,500 workers laid off, or 40 percent of the work force. We've approached the company again to see what this might mean for the company's plans for game support. The Fairfax transaction is slated to complete in November this year.