Xbox Live on Windows Phones: Microsoft drops a few more hints |
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Xbox Live on Windows Phones: Microsoft drops a few more hints
Following last week's Windows Phone 7 Series unveiling, one of the big unanswered questions was how deeply Microsoft will connect the new Windows Phones with its Xbox Live online gaming system. It's a key question, because the large base of Xbox Live users could give new momentum to the company's mobile business, if Microsoft can give them a compelling reason to use its new phone technology.
This morning we got a few more hints about how it will work. Responding to an analyst's questions on a conference call, Microsoft mobile communications chief Andy Lees made it clear that the company is aiming for a tight integration -- saying at one point that the system will enable "multiplayer, multiscreen games," with a unified marketplace that will use Xbox Live to facilitate those types of games.
Here's the full quote from Lees on the conference call ...
"We are very excited about the way in which the platform works across screens, so we have commonality of platform across the PC, the Xbox, and the web and the phone. We provide a new set of tools that makes it easy and very fast for people to develop applications for the phone but also in a way that works across screens, and we'll announce details of that at MIX. You're also right to point out that a marketplace is included, and the marketplace will work for applications but also for games, so the gaming marketplace for the first time will utilize Xbox Live, and that enables you to create multiplayer, multiscreen games, and the marketplace will facilitate that, so that it will actually work across screens."
The phrase "multiplayer, multiscreen" may sound intriguing, but it could be interpreted in a number of different ways.
For example, the company said last week that it would enable turn-based "asynchronous" multiplayer games in the new phones. But to really capture the attention of hard-core Xbox Live gamers, it might need something more along the lines of live multiplayer gaming between Windows Phones, presumably over a wireless network. Whether Lees was alluding to something deeper like that isn't clear from his remarks.
I've asked a Microsoft representative for clarification, but as mentioned by Lees in his comments, the company has generally been deferring questions on these topics to its upcoming MIX conference.
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