The iPhone Game Developers World Championship kicks off

The waiting is almost over. The anticipation is palpable. The nerves are jangling.

In a matter of hours the whistle will have blown on the first game in the inaugural Pocket Gamer iPhone Game Developers World Championship and we'll be on the way to discovering which nation makes the best iPhone games and developers.

We've already been through an intense qualification process to identify the most prolific iPhone game producing nations (based upon the home of the developer) and for each country created a squad of three games to represent.

The unique tournament structure we've put together will see an initial group stage (with each nation facing up to the other in their group on a round-robin basis), followed by a second knock-out round before we progress into the quarter and semi finals and ultimate the final itself.

In each match-up, we'll be pitting one representative game from each squad up against one another in a head-to-head with the result being decided by a combination of half critical opinion (that's us) and half public voting (that's you). The voting for each new round of matches will open two days before each match to give you plenty of time to cast your vote and then shortly after the whistle blows we'll tally up your votes with our views to create a score and match report before updating the appropriate tournament tables.

The opening match-ups are available for voting right now and will remain open until the kick-off of the match (at which point we'll begin to assemble our match reports), so head across to the iPhone Game Developer World Championship fixture/result page to cast your vote now!

Before all that, though, you'll want to come two important announcements on the final squad selections and the fixture list direct from Pocket Gamer iSports HQ.

After feverishly nominating your favourite iPhone titles and developers for these past couple of weeks, the boys over at iSports HQ organised a pre-qualifying tournament yesterday to determine the final squads and the 32 competing nations.

As always, there were shocks, surprise inclusions and strange omissions, but we got there...eventually.

The international squads each contain three iPhone titles - all of which will see action during the round robin group stages. There are but two exceptions: Portugal and Honduras. Sadly the respective iPhone Gaming Associations of these countries did not, unfortunately, submit their entries before the deadline and are, therefore, compelled to field understrength squads at the tournament.

And, as North Korea may find out soon at FIFA's own rehashing of our World Championship, these reduced squads could tire in the latter stages of the group games.

The groups

So, without further ado, I present to you the 32 runners and riders at this year's Pocket Gamer iPhone Game Developers World Championship:

Group A: Canada / Iceland / France / Poland
Group B: Argentina / Estonia / Romania / South Korea
Group C: Austria / India / England / USA
Group D: Australia / Germany / Hong Kong / Serbia
Group E: Denmark / Holland / Japan / Russia
Group F: Czech Republic / Italy / New Zealand / Scotland
Group G: Brazil / Portugal / Republic of Ireland / Sweden
Group H: Finland / Honduras / Spain / Switzerland

You can see which games and developers are representing each nation at the squad page and track their ongoing progress in the latest group table standings here.

Everything else you'll need including the fixture list, results, links to match reports and of course the all important voting can be found on our central iPhone Game Developers World Championship page.

There will also be dedicated match reports on each game and a regular round-up piece on major developments in the usual editorial feed, so be sure to check back to the main page regularly to follow progress and vote for your favourite games and developers.

Oh and do also feel free to check out the nifty new footie game FlickKick football and other titles on the app store from New Zealand-based PikPok games who are kindly sponsoring our inaugural tournament.

And that's about it, all that remains to say is that we know declare this tournament well and truly open. [Cue the token music star, dancing girls and coloured balloons of our elaborate opening ceremony - Ed]