PopCap Games announced today that its forthcoming arcade-style game Hammer Heads will be showcased on the first generation of Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) devices in the Microsoft booth at E3 next week. Along with the “sneak preview” of PopCap’s HeavyWeapon for Xbox360, these mark the first instances in PopCap’s history that the company has publicly unveiled games prior to their official release dates.

The UMPC devices, a new generation of hand-held mobile computing devices announced two months ago by Microsoft and Intel, are being manufactured by major consumer electronics and personal computer firms around the globe.

“We’re pleased to have Microsoft preview Hammer Heads on the first UMPC units at E3 next week, and expect the game to be very popular on that platform as well as traditional PCs when it officially ships later this year. As soon as we got our hands on a UMPC device for the first time, we just knew that playing on a tablet would be the ultimate Hammer Heads experience – the input and controls are even more intuitive and effective than a mouse!”