Pet Society Vacation dives into iOS in New Zealand, US release coming

And there's no scuba gear required. EA and Playfish have launched the iOS version of their Facebook hit, Pet Society, on the New Zealand App Store. According to Pocket Gamer, the game--titled Pet Society Vacation--should hit the UK App Store around midnight. Of course, this should mean that a U.S. release will follow soon after.

And based on our early impressions of the game from this year's E3 (well, more like additional information), color us excited. The game will be connected to your Facebook, but only so far as your main pet's appearance and level. Other than that, this is a brand new adventure for your pet that will involve it relaxing in a house boat on the coast of a tropical island.

While your items and currency won't carry over to this version of Pet Society, your mobile pet will be able to earn items and other rewards to use in your Facebook home. Better yet, players can take their pet scuba diving for extra coins and rewards like decorations. In other words, this will be your Pet Society away from ... Pet Society, or something like that. Keep your eyes glued to the App Store--you better bet we are.

The Sims Social: Grab free fan gifts with our links roundup

Where else will the Angry Birds crash land into and dominate? Nintendo 3DS? Xbox 360? Your scientific calculator? Who knows, but according to All Things Digital, Rovio SVP of brand advertising and analytics Wibe Wagemans said yesterday at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle, Wash. that Angry Birds is the number on game on Google+ Games.

Granted, that's out of all 16 games on the platform right now, but some of those games were put there by the likes of major social game creators like Zynga, Wooga, EA and Playdom. Wagemans, formerly an executive on Microsoft's Bing team, went on to say that Rovio has grown faster in the past two years than companies like MySpace, YouTube, Amazon and Skype. He also said, "We are now the fastest-growing consumer brand in history," ATD reports.

When you think about it, though: Not only is the Angry Birds game on nearly every gaming platform under the sun, but the little wingless cartoons and their amorphous green piglet enemies have been transformed into plush toys, t-shirts, board games, cook books, a feature film--need I go on?

During his talk in Seattle, Wageman revealed that Rovio welcomes over 120 million monthly Angry Birds players across the myriad of platforms the game is available on. Simply put, the western world is hooked on Angry Birds (it's science, remember?) and soon so will the East, if Rovio has any say in it. Sure, that's less than half of the 273 million or so monthly players Zynga caters to on Facebook alone, to which Wageman said, "We haven't even launched on Facebook yet." Oh ... oh, no.

[Image Credit: FuckYeahAlbuquerque]

Are you one of the 120 million or more devoted Angry Birds fans? Do you think Rovio could compete directly with Zynga when Angry Birds launches on Facebook?