Backbreaker Football scores 1 million downloads over Super Bowl weekend

The Packers and the Steelers may have dominated the sports column inches throughout the Super Bowl gala in February, but all eyes in the mobile gaming fraternity were on 20th Century Fox's Angry Birds spot and the Xperia Play promo.

NaturalMotion also revelled in some of that Steelers success with iOS release Backbreaker Football, which racked up over 1 million downloads during gridiron’s championship weekend.

Thanks to a sponsorship deal with KFC (the second of its kind for the Backbreaker franchise), NaturalMotion was in a position to offer Backbreaker Football for free for a limited time.

"We're thrilled by the user numbers we've been able to drive during the Super Bowl weekend," CEO Torsten Reil said.

"It's a testament to the reach of Apple's App Store, and an eye opener for how quickly we can generate millions of impressions for global brands on the App Store."

Whilst sales of Backbreaker Football continued to accelerate even after the Super Bowl campaign had ended, the studio's second tackle alley game, Vengeance, derived huge benefit from cross-promotional advertising.

Combined download figures for the Backbreaker series have now passed 5 million, according to NaturalMotion, who have recently announced a version will land on XBLA’s end zone in the summer.

Whether that signals an incoming Windows Phone 7 adaptation is pure speculation, but keep your eyes peeled to our sister site Pocket Gamer for confirmation, as and when.