Archives Posts

Coming Zune a Smartphone and Game Player from Microsoft

December 8th, 2008 by Alfred @ Zune MAX

The Zune Phone has been a rumor for about two years and the Xboy or portable Xbox player has been a rumor for at least 5 years. Manythink there will never be a portable game player from Microsoft but lets be real. What choice does Microsoft have? Can they survive as a company without a strong prescience in the mobile market? I don’t think so. Mobile computing is the way of the future and the smartphone is going to become the portable computer of choice.

Microsoft is not known as an innovator and many of their products and services are a me too effort with many critics crying foul over plagiarism and copycat ideas coming from the worlds largest software company. the Zune was no exception. Since the Zune was announced we have seen lots of comments about the fact they are playing catch up to Apple and Sony in the portable media player market with the iPhone and PSP leading in areas where Microsoft has little to no representation.

When they released Zune many of us were hopeful for what the futire held for them and we were excited about the potential for Microsoft handheld devices. That’s when the rumors started and things have been building ever since. You can read a partial timeline of the Zune phone announcements here for more details on the rumors but little has been said about an actual device until now. We knew that when Microsoft bought Danger they would be releasing a phone but no specifics. When they brought games to Zune we got even more excited because we could see that they understood what we wanted but still no game player

Now we may be taking the first steps towards an actual device. The latest rumors have Microsoft working on an all in one smartphone and game player using the Nvidia Tegra chip. The current story is that the new device will be more of a game player with phone features which may be what they need to invigorate the existing Xbox fanbase. A Microsoft portable game player has been the dream of a million Xbox fans since they introduced the first console years ago and its been a recurring rumor and joke just as long. The rumored new player is said to be primarily a game player and the Nvidia Tegra chip is the perfect fit for what we hope to see in our new Zune.

The rumors have been picked up by other tech sites and they seem to make sense to others as well. Just about everyone expects Microsoft to enter the mobile phone market with some sort of device that will allow them to compete with their own OS and the existing line of Windows Mobile Devices. By building their smartphone under the Zune brand and by the new super chip they may stand a chance against the iPhone and the Apple Apps store which just hit the 300 million apps downloaded mark. Some suggest they take on another acquisition by purchasing an existing provider such as RIM and building upon what they have already done but that’s an expensive option and it won’t guarantee success anyway.

I think the rumors make some sense to me. The Inquirer sets the new Zune phone game player release date as February 2009 but that’s not very likely in my opinion. I think they will make an announcement at some point early next year but they phone will not be ready until Holidays 2009. We will be getting a Zune phone and it may have the new Nvidia Tegra chipset but its going to a full year before I am playing games on my portable Microsoft device.

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

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Tags: Zune, Zune Game Player, Zune Phone

Are Zune and XNA the future of mobile gaming from Microsoft

March 9th, 2008 by Alfred @ Zune MAX

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 - Check out my Zune Card in the Zune forums now!

Tags: XNA, Zune, Zune Game Player, zune games, Zune XNA

XNA Game Studio 3.0 and Zune = Zune XNA

March 7th, 2008 by Alfred @ Zune MAX

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