A few days ago, there was a huge commotion around the Android and iOS campfires: Microsoft is bringing its first-party games to mobile platforms other than Windows Phone! The news stemmed from this Reuters report that Age of Empires would be coming to Android and iOS, followed by other titles. The first part is correct (though not nearly as exciting as it sounds, see below) but the latter part seems to be a translation error - Phil Spencer, Microsoft's VP of the company's internal game studio, clarified the issue via his Twitter account.

The difficulty came from the fact that this isn't the same Age of Empires that some of you might know and love It's a new, licensed version of the long-standing IP in the works by Japanese game company Klab. Klab is paying for the privilege of making Age of Empires into a free mobile title (presumably similar in at least some respects to the free Age of Empires Online) set to come to Android and iOS before the end of the company's fiscal year. Somehow the folks at Reuters got the impression that the deal was for multiple games. It's just Age of Empires - no Halo, no Forza, just a free-to-play game that shares a name with a notable real-time strategy franchise. Reuters has since issued a corrected story.

We passed on the story because, frankly, an AoE title that's similar to Age of Empires Online isn't all that exciting to us - call us strategy purists if you must. We'll still be covering its release of course, and we'd love to see Microsoft's other first party titles cross over (presumably after Windows Phone goes the way of Palm). But for the time being, there's much more interesting stuff happening in Android gaming.

Source: Phil Spencer via Slash Gear