Xbox arcade games portable to Windows Phone 7
By Alexis • Jul 1st, 2010 • Category: Uncategorized
- Photo: Microsoft
As we get closer to the release of Windows Phone 7 Series this October, Microsoft’s slow burn breadcrumb marketing campaign is gathering steam. The latest announcement the company has made is that there will be a huge focus on porting Xbox Live Arcade games over to their incoming mobile OS.
We sort of knew about this
Microsoft earlier this year showed off a remarkable demo of the same game being played on a PC, an Xbox 360, and a Windows Phone 7 smartphone. The impressive part of it all was that the game had 90 per cent identical code, which implies the porting would be quite simple.
XNA framework the enabler
This is possible because Microsoft’s XNA framework is responsible for powering the gaming behind both Xbox Live Arcade and Microsoft’s new mobile OS. Head of Consumer Marketing for Windows Phone 7, Oded Ran, admitted Microsoft are deliberately courting developers in their hopes of having Phone 7 be a premiere gaming platform. He pointed out that there were 4 million Xbox 360s compared to 2.5 million iPhones in the UK, somehow implying the console ubiquity (and installed developer based) will allow Microsoft to transfer the talent pool to Windows Phone 7 Series development by leveraging the XNA framework.
What do you make of this?
- Photo: Microsoft
Oded Ran did add that this initiative was aimed specifically at Xbox Live Arcade games and not bigger releases like the Halo 3 titles of the world.
As the months count down toward the imminent release of the Windows Phone 7 Series, one can’t help but be curious how it’s all going to pan out. Many in technology have already ruled out Microsoft’s potential to win big, but if the quality of Xbox Live Arcade games is anything to go by, the console will immediately have an ace up its sleeve. Furthermore, Microsoft’s recent fortunes (and critical appraisal) with its Xbox 360 console, Windows 7, and Office 2010 indicates people really shouldn’t rule Microsoft out just yet.
Tags for this article: windows 7, Windows Phone 7 Series, Xbox 360, Xbox Live arcade
