Here is a first look at Games for Zune on video. The Zune makes a great game playuer and moving around even on my old school Zune 30 is pretty smooth. I understand games are much better on the squircle for the Zune 80 and with that much space you can really stuff some musioc and new games on Zune.

Video: XNA Game Running on a Zune

Written by Alfred @ Zune MAX - Visit my Zune Card in the Zune forums now!

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Tags: Games, Gaming, Microsoft, The Zune, Video, Video Games, Zune, Zune XNA, xna, zune games, zune

I’m considering the XNA pacakge so I can install games on my Xbox. I looked into how hard it is and then I realized it’s a pay only feature. It’s $100 for homebrew games on my Xbox and thats a bit much this week. I gotta find out how many games there are and how easy it is to install them. Wheres the best Xbox XNA games place?

Connecting to Your Xbox 360 Console with XNA Game Studio 2.0

This guide assumes you have already installed a supported version of Visual Studio tools and XNA Game Studio. These products must be installed before connecting to an Xbox 360 console. For information about installing these products, see Setup and System Requirements.

* Step 1: Sign In to Xbox LIVE
* Step 2: Download XNA Game Studio Connect
* Step 3: Connect Your Xbox 360 Console and Windows-Based Computer
* Step 4: Create and Deploy an Xbox 360 Project
* What’s Next?

Step 1: Sign In to Xbox LIVE

Turn on your Xbox 360 console and sign in to Xbox LIVE. You will need at least a Silver Xbox LIVE membership, an XNA Creators Club membership, and a hard drive for your Xbox 360 console to be able to develop games for Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio. While you are in XNA Game Studio Connect or playing an XNA Game Studio game, you must remain connected to Xbox LIVE.
Step 2: Download XNA Game Studio Connect

XNA Game Studio Connect must be downloaded from Xbox LIVE Marketplace and installed on the Xbox 360 console. XNA Game Studio Connect is listed on Xbox LIVE Marketplace next to the XNA Creators Club Subscription, which may be found by selecting Game Store, More…, Genres, and then Other.
Step 3: Connect Your Xbox 360 Console and Windows-Based Computer

When you develop games for Xbox 360, you develop them on your Windows-based computer, then transfer them over your local network to your Xbox 360 console. This requires that your Windows-based computer and Xbox 360 console share the same subnet. Most home networking layouts support this configuration. If your console and computer share a router or hub, it is likely that they share the same subnet.

With your computer and console on the same subnet, follow these steps to set up a connection between your computer and your console.

Technorati Tags: zune, xna, zune xna, zune games

Written by Alfred @ Zune MAX - Visit my Zune Card in the Zune forums now!

Popularity: 30% [?]

Tags: Games, Gaming, Microsoft, Video Games, Xbox, Zune, Zune Game Player, Zune News, Zune Rumors, Zune SDK, Zune Software, Zune XNA, xna, zune games, MICROSOFT, xbox, xbox 360, xbox live, zune, zune game, zune xna

Microsoft is in denial. They deny that Zune will become a “copyright cop” but Zune has the toughest DRM of any player and Microsoft is only stating that they have no agreements in place. This does not mean that at some time in the future they cannot change their mind and implement some kind of filter to at the minimum disable play of the offending track but may go as far as to disable a Zune player “infected” with unlicensed content.

That would suck cause I have a nice personalized collection of music I just found here and there. People leave music in the strangest places and over the last ten years I have found it all over the place. Kinda like you might find a cassette tape laying out on the sidewalk I keep running into mp3 files of my favorite tunes that someone just dropped on the internets. I keep saving them cause I may find the guy that owns them and if he can identify them as his I’ll give them back. If not its finders keepers right? I hate to think my Zune won’t play cause I found some free music online.

Microsoft has already signaled a willingness to secure content on the desktop and now Zune and I’m sure this all means they’ll have plans but at some other time when they see fit.

Microsoft denies putting ‘copyright cop’ in Zune | Beyond Binary - A blog by Ina Fried - CNET News.com

The New York Times suggested Wednesday that future versions of the Zune might come with a tiny cop capable of catching digital lawbreakers.

And no, I’m not talking about some sort of bundled action flick.

In a blog, the Times’ Saul Hansell said that, as part of Microsoft’s deal to get NBC TV shows, it had agreed to look into the possibility of adding technology into the MP3 player that would scan a user’s collection for unauthorized content.

The blog cites Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn as saying that the software maker is exploring antipiracy measures with NBC. Microsoft issued a statement on Wednesday denying that there was any agreement to filter content.

“Microsoft has no plans or commitments to implement content filtering features in the Zune family of devices as part of our content distribution deal with NBC,” the software maker said in a statement.

Sohn echoed the sentiment. “We’ve agreed to work with these guys on a number of issues, but we have no plans or commitment to put filtering technology as part of this arrangement with NBC,” he told CNET News.com.

Microsoft launched its Zune video store this week with about 800 TV show episodes, including content from NBC, which earlier pulled its content from iTunes in a dispute over pricing and other issues. Despite the apparent coup with NBC, Microsoft is still lagging Apple badly on the sales front.

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Tags: Zune, Zune XNA, MICROSOFT, MP3, zune, zune music

Small victory for Microsoft’s Zune over iPod - International Herald Tribune

Microsoft will sell television shows on the Zune Marketplace, bringing its selection of content for the digital media player a step closer to what the iTunes site from Apple offers for the iPod.

Microsoft also said Tuesday that it planned to provide software updates that add new features to Zune devices and to the PC software used to buy and manage digital content.

Microsoft ventured into downloadable video sales for the Zune in October when it released its second-generation players and software, but the content was limited to music videos.

As of Tuesday, Microsoft was selling episodes of TV shows, including Comedy Central’s “South Park” and Sci-Fi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica,” for $1.99 each.

In a small victory over Apple, Microsoft said the Zune Marketplace would carry shows from the NBC network like “The Office” and “Heroes.”

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Tags: Microsoft, The Zune, Zune, Zune XNA

Found another great article on Gamasutra about Xbox Live and XNA but the most interesting quote in the entire article was the one below:
Gamasutra - Connecting Communities, Redefining Xbox Live: Chris Satchell On XNA

It’s interesting. There’s always been the theory that Microsoft was going to do the “X Boy,” but there’s never been any real credibility to that theory, as far as I’m aware. Coupling XNA with Zune is an interesting way to still get into the handheld games space with an existing device and not have it be a potential problem or liability.CS: It is interesting, because Zune was never designed for gaming. I don’t know about you, but I love the way this control input feels, especially…

I’m excited about what can be done with XNA on Zune and I think game development is going to be awesome for Zune. I wrote about the XNA platform when it first came out and I knew then that XNA was a great fit not only for Xbox but for Zune as well and recent announcements have confirmed what I already knew. Microsoft mobile games development will be under the Zune platform more so than Xbox. There is no Xboy coming Zune!

Written by Alfred @ Zune MAX - Visit my Zune Card in the Zune forums now!

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tags: Games, The Zune, Video Games, Xbox, Zune, Zune Developers, Zune Game Player, Zune SDK, Zune XNA, xbox, xbox live, xna, zune, zune game player, zune games, zune xna

I realized that I never posted a link to the announcement last month about XNA development on Zune. It’s been a long time coming but we’ll have games for Zune that are designed and developed by members of the Zune community. If anyone is as hyped about developing a game as I am then please contact me so we can get to work on building some games for Zune game players.
XNA Team Blog : Announcing: XNA Game Studio 3.0 and Zune

Announcing: XNA Game Studio 3.0 and ZuneDavid “LetsKillDave” Weller

XNA Evangelist

We could have rested on our laurels by just announcing the new Xbox LIVE community games and XNA Creators Club Online features, but we’re a driven bunch of people here, and we’re passionate about gaming, so let’s lob another amazing treat out there.

The XNA Community Games Platform team is delighted to offer you a sneak peek at our first major feature for XNA Game Studio 3.0: The ability to build games for the Zune platform! This will let you write one game and deploy it to all three platforms that XNA Game Studio 3.0 will support: the Xbox 360, Windows, and now the Zune. While the Zune lacks the 3D graphics horsepower to drive high-end games like you can on the Xbox 360, we’ve taken extreme steps in making sure that you will have the broadest access to the XNA Framework APIs possible, allowing you to create fun Zune games while still letting you integrate carefully with the overall Zune media experience. That means that XNA Game Studio 3.0 integration includes discoverability/access to the user’s music – allowing the user to customize background soundtracks or create real-time visualizations at their discretion. In addition, the XNA Community Games Platform team has announced the ability to have multiple Zunes wirelessly engage in an ad-hoc gaming experience (think of the possibilities!).

Our current planning is to offer a preview release of XNA Game Studio 3.0 in the Spring 2008 timeframe, with a final release scheduled for the holiday 2008 season. We look forward to your feedback and seeing what kind of amazing games you can create for the Zune!

Read more about this at http://creators.xna.com/whatsnew.aspx

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Tags: Community, Games, Gaming, Microsoft, The Zune, Video Games, Xbox, Zune, Zune Developers, Zune SDK, Zune XNA

Here is a very interesting article written by Patrick Klepek over at the Multi Player Blog at MTV.com that asks if the Microsoft Live Anywhere Initiative is dead? For those of you who do not know what the Live Anywhere Initiative is take a look back at the Wikipedia page for more details. In a nutshell Live Anywhere is Microsofts global plan for dominance of our digital lifestyle where they want us to be able to access their services from anywhere at anytime through Windows, Xbox and now Zune.

Patrick asks if the Live Anywhere Initiative is dead and I don’t understand how he came to this conclusion really. I think that Zune is actually the most important component to the Live Initiative. I think Zune will cover most if not all of the mobile components and is not limited to just music and phones. I realize that everyone has been waiting for a mobile Xbox platform to arrive but I think its already here in the form of Zune. I think that Xbox will be reserved as the home entertainment console with a focus on HD movies and IPTV which I think will make an obvious partner with Xbox as the preferred content delivery method of the future. There will not be a mobile Xbox game player or platform, its going to be Zune Game Players. I believe that Zune is the mobile platform and the “Anywhere” aspect of the Live Anywhere Initiative that is still very much alive. It’s progressing just fine but what our friend Patrick has missed is that it will not be developed under the Xbox brand as so many expected it would be it will be under the new brand of Zune.

My money lies on a portable game player from Zune and not Xbox. What better way to insure the success of the Zune brand then to build the mobile game player on that platform? It won’t matter what they call it they mobile game player from Microsoft is a sure success and by building it on the Zune platform they guarantee the success of their new mobile entertainment and communications platform. Once they integrate more Windows Mobile and Live features into the Zune game and music players the convergence of Live Anywhere exists. The Live Platform is all of the Microsoft services including Windows, Windows Mobile, Xbox and now Zune. It began as Xbox Live with the games because that was the easiest to generate a community with and they will slowly make it a Microsoft portal with access to everything Live. This should make it easier to understand why Microsoft has been dumping billions into Xbox when you see that it was about much more than just games and why they will dump billions into Zune which is about much more than just music.
MTV Multiplayer » We Asked Microsoft: Is That ‘Live Anywhere’ Initiative Dead?

At the Microsoft’s press briefing at E3 2006, Bill Gates came on stage to introduce Live Anywhere, an ambitious company initiative to integrate the Xbox 360 experience into everyday life via mobile phones.Nearly two years later, Live Anywhere has yet to materialize.

Is Live Anywhere dead? Here’s what Xbox Live exec. John Schappert (who took the stage for Microsoft’s keynote at GDC this year) told Multiplayer in an e-mailed statement:

Technorati Tags: zune, xbox, live, microsoft, live anywhere, xbox live, zune live, zune games

Written by Alfred @ Zune MAX - Visit my Zune Card in the Zune forums now!

Popularity: 76% [?]

Tags: Microsoft, The Zune, Xbox, Zune, Zune Phone, Zune Rumors, Zune XNA, live anywhere, microsoft, xbox, xbox 360, xbox live, zune, zune game, zune game player, zune games, zune live

Our new forum moderator Spell 125 has graciously donated his time and effort to assisting me, the graphically challenged, by designing a new header for the front page of the Zune MAX blog. The goal was to flow better with the design and style of the forums and to show our relationship to the Zune device.
I think it looks awesome and I’m most appreciative of his work for our community. Spell 125 is on a roll considering he was also the lucky winner of a Zune poster when selected as designer of the Zuneguy logo.

Spell 125 is better known as James Hostetler and for his blog DAPularity which offers the low down on the latest digital audio players (DAP) in the market. He’s come up with a cool iPod vs Zune size comparison image that shows the difference between a Zune, an iPod and a deck of cards. It really helps put things in perspective as to the actual size of Zune for those of us unfortunate enough not to have held one yet.

James also has a nice write up on Rock Box on Zune. which is a very designable custom firmware used to extend the software capabilities of digital audio players. He feels Microsoft has no reason not to open up the Zune for customization or "modding". He writes in his DAP blog: "By basing the coding off a commonly used language and OS, Windows made their PDAs easily accessible to windows-based applications and allowed them to run a multi-tude of interesting multimedia programs. I would have to say I expect the same efforts for the Zune. By placing no barriers between the Zune and its customers, I believe Microsoft will open it up to those respectable modders that make our life so much more personalized."

I have to agree with James in that the best move Microsoft can make is to open up the Zune platform to the army of existing Windows developers for an almost endless array of extensions and applications for Zune. The power of the Windows development world is a vital asset in the success and capabilities of Zune. I’m hopeful the announcement by David Cauldon at Zunester about there not being a Zune SDK relates to the fact they have something much larger prepared for Zune developers. I think it may be more like a Zune XNA Framework, or Zune ZNA maybe, that would be used for development on the Zune. David says Zune is not a platform but a  consumer device. I say the consumer will decide that the Zune is in fact a platform and should left for all of us to personalize with third party extensions for a truly "connected experience" in our "digital lifestyle". The market will force them to open the platform to developers if they want it to succeed and in the end there will be a Zune SDK of some form or other.

So, I would like to thank James for his work on cleaning up the look of things around here. I would also like to thank all the other dedicated members of the Zune community for their ambitious assistance in building a great forum. We’re having fun in our Zune boards and you should check it out if you haven’t yet.

 

Written by Alfred @ Zune MAX - Visit my Zune Card in the Zune forums now!

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Tags: The Zune, Zune Developers, Zune Firmware, Zune Hardware, Zune Reviews, Zune SDK, Zune XNA