Microsoft has revealed what they’re doing with Xbox Live and Windows Phone 7 and it doesn’t look like they’re going to be half-assing things here. As the general manager of mobile gaming for MGS, Matt Booty, put it, “Windows Phone 7 is the launch of a major gaming platform for Microsoft.”
It’s easy to see Microsoft means business as the line-up is pretty huge. 60 games will be available when Windows Phone 7 is launched this Christmas, all listed below. More games are planned to be part of the launch portfolio and we can expect new titles every week after the new OS launches.
The games are a mix of stuff you’ve seen on the Apple and Android platforms, but there will be first-party developed exclusive titles as well, such as Halo: Waypoint and Crackdown 2.
This is being marketed as an extension of your Xbox Live experience so expect Avatars, friends, demos, Achievements, messaging and more. It should be pointed out that the press release states “turn-based” multiplayer instead of just regular multiplayer. Seems there won’t be real time multiplayer, at least not at launch anyway.
Apple, Android and now Microsoft have finally stepped up their game in the mobile war. Which of these three platform are you backing?
- “3D Brick Breaker Revolution” (Digital Chocolate)
- “Age of Zombies” (Halfbrick)
- “Armor Valley” (Protégé Games)
- “Asphalt 5” (Gameloft)
- “Assassins Creed” (Gameloft)
- “BejeweledTM LIVE” (PopCap)
- “Bloons TD” (Digital Goldfish)
- “Brain Challenge” (Gameloft)
- “Bubble Town 2” (i-Play)
- “Butterfly” (Press Start Studio)
- “CarneyVale Showtime” (MGS)
- “Castlevania” (Konami)
- “Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst” (MGS)
- “De Blob Revolution” (THQ)
- “Deal or No Deal 2010” (i-Play)
- “Earthworm Jim” (Gameloft)
- “Fast & Furious 7” (i-Play)
- “Fight Game Rivals” (Rough Cookie)
- “Finger Physics” (Mobliss Inc.)
- “Flight Control” (Namco Bandai)
- “Flowerz” (Carbonated Games)
- “Frogger” (Konami)
- “Fruit Ninja” (Halfbrick)
- “Game Chest-Board” (MGS)
- “Game Chest-Card” (MGS)
- “Game Chest-Logic” (MGS)
- “Game Chest-Solitaire” (MGS)
- “GeoDefense” (Critical Thought)
- “Ghostscape” (Psionic)
- “Glow Artisan” (Powerhead Games)
- “Glyder 2” (Glu Mobile)
- “Guitar Hero 5” (Glu Mobile)
- “Halo Waypoint” (MGS)
- “Hexic Rush” (Carbonated Games)
- “I Dig It” (InMotion)
- “iBlast Moki” (Godzilab)
- “ilomilo” (MGS)
- “Implode XL” (IUGO)
- “Iquarium” (Infinite Dreams)
- “Jet Car Stunts” (True Axis)
- “Let’s Golf 2” (Gameloft)
- “Little Wheel” (One click dog)
- “Loondon” (Flip N Tale)
- “Max and the Magic Marker” (PressPlay)
- “Mini Squadron” (Supermono Limited)
- “More Brain Exercise” (Namco Bandai)
- “O.M.G.” (Arkedo)
- “Puzzle Quest 2” (Namco Bandai)
- “Real Soccer 2” (Gameloft)
- “The Revenants” (Chaotic Moon)
- “Rise of Glory” (Revo Solutions)
- “Rocket Riot” (Codeglue)
- “Splinter Cell Conviction” (Gameloft)
- “Star Wars: Battle for Hoth” (THQ)
- “Star Wars: Cantina” (THQ)
- “The Harvest” (MGS)
- “The Oregon Trail” (Gameloft)
- “Tower Bloxx NY” (Digital Chocolate)
- “Twin Blades” (Press Start Studio)
- “UNO” (Gameloft)
- “Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet” (i-Play)
- “Zombie Attack!” (IUGO)
- “Zombies!!!!” (Babaroga)
We’re giving away four Samsung Galaxy S Epic Android phones! The brand new Samsung phone was released just last month and each phone will come with a Sprint three month pre-paid SIM card and some games. Check out this review for more details on the Galaxy S or see below for the specs. Each phone is valued at $699 and you can win one for free in our latest contest thanks to Samsung!
To enter this contest, simply tell us in the comments below what you typically use your phone for the most. Texting, browsing the Internet, pretend like you’re talking to someone so it seems like you didn’t hear the bum ask for change or actually make phone calls. Whatever it is you do the most, just tell us below.
No limit to entry, but you have to space out your submissions so that at least five other people have entered before you can comment again. We’ll be picking four random comments to give the Galaxy S phones to after the contest closes on August 31 at 11:59PM CDT. Contest open to US Residents only. Good luck!
Specs:
- 4G Capable
- 5 Megapixel camera with Auto Focus
- Sliding QWERTY keyboard
- Frequency: CDMA 800/1900
- Dimensions: 4.9″ x 2.5″ x 0.6″
- Weight: 5.47 ounces
- Super AMOLED 480×800 pixels
- 1500mAh Li-ion battery
- Talk time: 6 hours
- Standby time: 216.1 hours
- 1GB internal memory
- 1GHz processor speed
- 16GB microSD card installed
- Front/Rear-facing 5.0 Megapixel camera/camcorder
- 720p HD Video
- Android 2.1
- Multi-touch capacitive touchscreen display, 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope
- Digital compass
- Swype
One of the saddest things to come out of the Clinton administration, from my perspective, was the mass erosion of consumer rights known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Hailed as a victory by the entertainment industry upon its passage in 1998, it made it illegal to circumvent the digital rights management (DRM) schemes developed to protect the property of copyright holders. And, in the process, effectively proved that we, as users of media, don’t have any right whatsoever to use the data that makes up our films, music and games in any manner other than that deemed appropriate by the companies which own them.
This hasn’t changed. But in a rare show of compassion for those who are impacted in a negative manner by this legislation, the Library of Congress has now relaxed restrictions in some circumstances. The aspect of the ruling which was most surprising is making it legal for users to circumvent DRM on wireless communications devices to run third-party software, enabling functions not made available on the device as well as allow it to connect to networks the device was not intended by its manufacturer to access.
Was that too long for you? Let’s try this, then: The iPhone can now be jailbroken legally. Of course, everyone who was likely to have done this already has, so the effect should be negligible. And you’ll still be voiding the hell out of your warranty, as there’s no way in hell Apple’s ever going to budge on this aspect of their platform.
Also of note is an expansion of rights in regards to videogames proper. Hackers are now empowered to crack DRM for the purposes of addressing security flaws in game software, presumably to fix them. I suppose developers are going to be urged by their publishers to be extra careful about making sure their netcode is tight now, which can only be a good thing for us.
Surprising New DMCA Exceptions: Jailbreaking Smartphones, Noncommercial Videos Somewhat Allowed [Techdirt]
We sent Dale North to check out Windows Phone 7 at GDC, and he came away impressed. So impressed, that he talked about it constantly throughout the entire week. Whatever he had seen — both games and general interface — had made him at least consider ditching his current mobile lover, Apple’s iPhone.
While Dale’s write-up was pretty detailed, you know what they say — pictures or it didn’t happen. Microsoft wasn’t letting Dale grab any video, so this will have to do — Gizmodo has grabbed video of one of the game’s Dale saw in action, Harvest.
Visually, it looks impressive, some sort of top-down point and click-style game rendered entirely in 3D. Sure, the enemies don’t seem to be attacking the player in this demo, but when they’re attacked, the player earned a 10 point achievement which goes towards their total Xbox LIVE Gamerscore. If you think Gamerscore whores won’t feel compelled to buy these mobile games just to boost their score, you’re fooling yourself.
Gizmodo’s video player isn’t as embed friendly as I’d like, so you’ll have to go check it out there for yourself.
The First Xbox Live Windows Phone Game Looks Awesome (Achievement Unlocked!) [Gizmodo]
Here’s something you don’t see every day. An emulator for the Sega Genesis is on its way to the iPhone App Store and, get this, it probably won’t be taken down within 24 hours. Sega is getting set to release their own official emulator for everybody’s favorite little handheld.
I wouldn’t get too excited, though. It’s less an emulator than a content portal. You’ll be able to buy a number of classic Genesis games through the app, including Ecco the Dolphin, Shining Force, Sonic the Hedgehog and Golden Axe. And, for buying the emulator itself, you’ll get to enjoy Space Harrier II, the app’s pack-in title.
A couple of the games announced have already been released to the App Store as independent games, which is less exciting. But with how cluttered things have become in there, having a way to deliver games to the people who want them more efficiently sounds like a very good idea. The emulator should appear in the App Store next month.
Ultimate Genesis: Sega’s Official Console Emulator for iPhone [Gizmodo]
Here’s something that I never knew existed even though I grew up working in a videogame store for a better part of my life. It’s called the Super Game Boy Commander and was a controller for the Super Nintendo. More specifically, it was a controller themed after the original Game Boy to be used with the Super Game Boy adapter for the Super Nintendo. Super.
This controller, from what I can tell, was made for no good reason at all. TinyCartridge believes it was made for people that couldn’t play anything Game Boy on the SNES unless they were able to feel speaker vents under the two main buttons. Sounds like a good reason to me.
Whatever the case, you can buy a brand new Commander for only $19.90 over on NCSX. Not bad for all you retro collectors out there.
That Apple iPhone is pretty popular with just about everyone these days and as it becomes more and more ubiquitous it’s also becoming a better and better gaming platform with some real and noteworthy games coming out for it. Like any good, world dominating company Sony wants in on some of that hot, hot action and are thus, as Japan’s Nikkei business daily is reporting, starting to develop a "cellphone-game gear hybrid."
Development on the project will begin next month with a specialized team tackling the job. The job in question is to "develop a new product that combines functions of its portable game player and Sony Ericsson’s mobile phones." Does this interest anyone or does the fact that Sony is once again about three years behind Apple on this mean Sony has lost yet another market to Apple?
Rumors concerning Sony and a gaming phone have swirled for years, especially since Skype hit the PSP, but the source on this is heavily reliable, so it is almost a sure thing that Sony is at least going to look into the making of a phone/gaming platform.
Also, thanks to Silent Hill, Destructoid now has images ready for any type of phone/gaming rumor that could ever happen.
New videos of PlayStation and Game Boy Advance emulators running on iPhone 3GS hardware look pretty impressive. There’s no jailbreak yet, but when it happens, you’ll have a pretty nice pocket GBA on your hands as an iPhone 3GS owner running emulator gpSPhone. How impressive? Try over 200 frames per second clocked while running Pokemon Emerald, even with sound on. See it for yourself in the cracked out demonstration video after the jump.
Only slightly less impressive is the video of Final Fantasy VII running on the psx4iphone emulator. It looks to run nicely and at a decent frame rate, though no sound is included. Zodttd says that the emulator runs "very speedy" on the 3GS, though the emulation is still rough around the edges. Impressive. Get this going. I would love to have some portable RPG action on the go.
Check out both videos after the jump.
[via engadget]