Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system will come with Xbox Live built in as the phone’s gaming hub – achievements, Arcade and Avatars will all be making the jump to the small screen. Whilst WP7 will ship with turn-based 360 vs phone multiplayer in certain games, a representative for the company has confirmed at Canada’s X10 event that real-time cross-platform multiplayer is also in the works.
“So initially we’re turn by turn-based,” the Microsoft rep said during a demo of the new mobile OS, captured by rgbFilter. “We are working on real-time phone-to-console, likely initially through Wi-Fi — again, operator networks are sensitive to that. That’s not on day one; day one will be turn-by-turn as well as companion-type gaming where you play a level on the phone and it may unlock a level or a weapon or some special achievement on the console game. But, uh yeah — absolutely working on phone-to-console real-time. That is something we’re working on and expect to have in the near future.”
It’ll be interesting to see how well 360 vs mobile multiplayer will work in non-arcadey games – Battleships or Peggle would be fine, but anything more complex might be to difficult to port to a touch-screen interface. Windows Phone 7 is scheduled for a release this October, but Microsoft has not revealed when real-time cross-platform gaming could be arriving.
carson321
Xmas 2012!
TheShepanator
sony need to do something like this for mobiles
carson321
PSP2! lol
tonycawley
Turn based should be fine, really think real time is going to suck big balls though.
fps_d0minat0r
whats the point, its full of complications.
the first being that mobile gaming isnt good enough due to 1) button layout, 2) poor power.
MrTwP
iphone gaming is awesome, its no ps3 but if it has the right games.. it could be amazing
smokeybeef
I can’t see this working too well myself, but who knows?
I suppose the ‘companion-type gaming’ is an improvement of what PSP has already done a couple of times in the past.
Question: Do you have to have an Xbox LIVE Gold account to use the LIVE features on WP7?
hazelam
they didn’t want pc versus xbox but phone versus xbox is fine?
Juelz345
They’ve done PC versus xbox in the past (Shadow Run, or something like that).
They obviously want to make WP7 as attactive to LIVE users as possible to try and generate sales. I’m personally satisfied with being able to earn gamescore from the WP7 games. But being able to play games like Peggle or other puzzle/casual games with Wp7 and 360 connectivity could be nice. I’m sure my wife and i would make use of this with games like peggle and scrabble. Assuming one of us buys a WP7 device. I’m an iPhone user and she’s a BB user, and it would be hard for either of us to give those up.
Bilbo_bobbins
another Kinect in the making me thinks.
TSBonyman
we’ll know zune enough..
Juelz345
I see what you did there…