Microsoft is serious about gaming in WP7

August 11, 2010 | By rush24

One of WP7 greatest features as it races towards launch will be its tight integration with Xbox Live. In order for this to succeed, they will need to have a lot of good games in the ecosystem to get users excited. XBL already possesses a diverse array of awesome games for the console and I bet some of these will be ported to the mobile device. Not wanting leave it to chance, Microsoft has just posted a job opening for a Lead Engineer for their newly minted MGS Mobile gaming studio. From the job post

Our vision is to deliver games and entertainment so good that people will want them always with them, on a service that makes them social, connected and relevant anywhere their life goes. The Mobile Gaming team is building industry leading products that showcase our Windows Phone platform as well as emerging mobile platforms, and will help realize Microsoft’s connected entertainment vision. The Mobile Gaming studio will be the hub for MGS franchises and titles on mobile devices and a center of excellence for mobile games.

Gaming on mobile platforms is huge, accounting for the the majority of the apps sold on the iPhone, and 40% of the time spent on facebook. It is encouraging to see that the guys at Microsoft recognize this and that they are allocating a significant amount of resources to make it a succeed. This could be their ace in the hole other than office mobile and even Mac loyalist, John Gruber, realizes this. A quote from his post from a few weeks back, the great game, somewhat alludes to the possibility.

I’m also loath to write off Windows Phone 7. What if WP7 is a best-of-breed mobile gaming platform?

Via neowin.net

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About Rush24

Rush24 loves everything Microsoft and is fascinated by the influence of technology in everyday life.

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Tagged gaming, wp7, xbox live

sebas

but i have a playstation!

bing

and a 40 million have an xbox 360, with 25 million xbox live subscribers to date.

Northerngeek

Hopefully this is the ace up Microsoft's sleeve, as much as I like my Zune I can't see that being the service to get users hooked in the initial launch of WP7… XBL on the other hand has a real shot if the quality is up to scratch.

Here are my hopes:

1) Microsoft respects the fact that this is a phone and not a portable game console- they should avoid charging more than a few dollars/pounds/euros per title, there's a risk that they could price themselves out of the competition.

2) There's something unique about the way that XBL is tied together on consoles and the device- experience wise I mean… something that only a company positioned like MS could pull off.

3) The new studio, which in itself is a wish come true, has to develop top quality and innovative ideas- MS should take advantage of the unique benefits of their chassis e.g. four point multitouch.
http://twitter.com/ThreadAbort @ThreadAbort

I wish developers that really want to develop something on Windows Phone 7 could get a phone!
I have a great game idea that I am implementing on Android because it is too hard to get a device.

Northerngeek

Could you not use the emulator? Perhaps a good looking application would then allow you to get a developer device.

Did you get a free Android phone or did you pay for that? If you payed that would be a tad unfair. Microsoft has afterall given a lot of developers free phones… what's to say you couldn't get one when you show them you're worth it?

P.S. Look at the recent GDGT show- they gave them away free there.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=746307628 Ricardo Dawkins

Where is the link to that GDGT show?

Northerngeek

My apologies for the poor wording; what I meant to say was the GDGT Seattle event, as detailed here: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/window…

chinch

about time.
GAM3R

I am PSP owner, PSP is winner over wp7… wp7 games are sucks! I hope sony make psp phone, sony will win over wp7.

chinch

"I am a PSP owner"…

that explains quite a lot. ROTF PSP.
yoitsme

Oh I didn't know you owned WP7 thats not even been out yet. How did you even get the WP7 games they aren't out either?

sorry but you SUCK!!!
go troll the highway.

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