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In news that will surely annoy the Google Android team, French game developer Gameloft has announced today that they’re significant cutting back on Android development. Finance Director Alexandre de Rochefort stated at an investor conference that “Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue.” And he went on to say “We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android.”

Apparently, 13% of  Gameloft’s revenue last quarter came from iPhone games, which puts their returns from Android games at a fairly negligible number. While this strategy may save them some money in the short term, as Android finally gets its legs with the release of the Droid and a very promising 2010 approaching, they may be setting themselves up to lose out in the long run. Then again, perhaps it’ll be worth it to hold off on development for a year or so while Android returns become more enticing.

On the iPhone side of things, this news means that Gameloft will continue to prefer Apple’s platform for mobile game development. Gameloft is one of many companies turning the iPhone into a viable mobile gaming platform, and now it seems as if Apple will have less to worry about from Android on the gaming front (though honestly, I’m sure they’re not even paying attention).

[Source: Reuters]