There's great news for iPhone, iPad and Android phone or tablet-owning fans of Football Manager: a new version of Football Manager Handheld will hit app stores "before Christmas". Not so great news for new Microsoft Surface or Windows Phone owners though, they will miss out this year at least. BlackBerry users too.

Sports Interactive is close to releasing the new version of the hugely successful footy management game on iTunes and Google Play, but has no plans to develop it for other platforms. Pocket-lint spoke to studio director Miles Jacobson who told us exclusively that the Windows tablet and smartphone platform is too fragmented - by Microsoft's design, it seems.

"The problem with Windows 8, for me, is that a decision seems to have been made somewhere that tablets and PCs are of one family, and that phones are a different family. Whereas, we believe that tablets and phones are one family," said Jacobson.

"So, until those boundaries are clearer and until the public decides what they want Windows RT to be – or whether they want it to be anything at all – then we’re not going to be looking at Windows 8 or Windows RT."

Read: Football Manager 2013 review

As for BlackBerry, the decision not to support the platform this year is simple. "No one from BlackBerry’s ever picked up the phone to speak to me," the SI Games director explained.

It's a shame, because Football Manager Handheld 2012 on both iOS and Android was a massive Pocket-lint favourite and App of the Day earlier this year and is likely to be again this - the 2013 version will be "similar".

"It will be similar to previous offerings because we’re pretty much maxing-out the devices as they are. We want to be able to be on the lower-end devices as well," said Jacobson.

"There’s not much point, in my opinion, in making a game like Football Manager Handheld and not have it playable on the iPad 1. There’s a lot of people who still have iPad 1s out there.

"We’re not going to go down the route of looking gorgeous but ultimately limiting the market, that would be a silly thing for us to do."

Do you want to see a version of Football Manager Handheld on your non-Apple/non-Android device? Let us know in the comments below...