'Xbox Live Games' to plug Windows Mobile into Xbox ecosystem at last? Wouldn't that make too much sense?
By Paul Miller 
posted January 11th 2010 10:28AM
posted January 11th 2010 10:28AM
[Thanks, Philip]
posted January 11th 2010 10:28AM
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How much extra will it cost?
@glamajamma
Hopefully it acts like a game distribution system as much as a premium gaming service, so that you dont need to pay $$$ just to play.
Online checkers should not require a payment plan!
@glamajamma my guess is that it'll be linked to your existing Live account, and services will be based on whether you're silver or gold.
@glamajamma As to cost there is a 100% chance it will require you to be paying the for Gold (so theres a 50 dollar per year minimum). There is a 50% chance of there being an extra level of gold service you have to buy for this (platinum say) and a further 50% chance of there being an added fee from your phone carrier. I would bet this service costs a minimum of 10 bucks a month (less if you were going to buy gold anyway).
This will also probably require more expensive win mo phones costing at least a few hundred dollars after subsidy. In total I would bet a phone with this capability costs 500-600 extra dollars over 2 years outside of normal smart phone charges. I can't think of anything MS makes that doesn't cost a few hundred dollars extra to get full functionality though over a few years, this could always be the first product ever to do that.
@Impulsivity I think you're smoking crack. You were just DYING to type M$ instead of MS, weren't ya?
MW2 on my WM7 phone. It hurts my brain to think about it..
@acegilbert i doubt!!! ....i don't think it for the next 3-4 years... maybe ... ^^
With a little augmented reality you could actually shoot people in an airport!
@Erluti LMFAO!
Halo Reach on WM7 phone!
You're not getting console games on your phones. If you get anything, it'll probably be the arcade games.
@TheHeretic with achievements !
@(Unverified) Achievements: The downfall of competent and complex gaming! Seriously, most of the achievements can be obtained with YouTube. How is that the test of a gamer's prowess? It's simply a way to get gamers to pay for more games to get the points.
Where is the Zune HD Love ? The chip can deff handle it
@JTD
It could be happening, but around here we would never know. I tipped Engadget about firmware updates to Zune HD (http://ces.cnet.com/8301-31045_1-10429068-269.html) but they will not post anything about that. MS could have announced Zune HD will have XBOX LIVE, but Engadget will not "report" it.
@NohOne1 I totally missed that myself. Though it says nothing about tying into Xbox/Live, I wouldn't doubt that MS will announce that when they announce WM7.
@JTD Something tells me this is actually foreshadowing the longed for "Zune Phone".
which would be pretty cool
@JTD It's also Windows CE based, too.
"The Xbox LIVE service extends beyond the console" - Yes it does, now I have to use that crap to play GTA IV online despite buying the game on Steam. -_-
Engadget, you know better than to use logic!
ecosystem
noun Ecology a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
finnally
Believe it when I see it
Microsoft can't even get the music portion of their Zune branding on the Xbox (even though they have video up). I don't see them magically having a cross platform gaming store.
Yes, MS is in frantic catchup mode and which can only benefit Winmo users, like myself. I'm always for any new features...better than sitting on their ass.
*badass*
(if it's true)
You win Engadget! That other Electronics blog took this and made it into a bad thing because it could be locked to MS devices. This is great news by MS. Hopefully it will be executed correctly.
@Pookiewood agreed. Saw this on engadget's evil twin and cringed, realized there was a reason I hadn't been there in a month.
arcade games?
Wonder if Microsoft will limit this to WinMo7 as they will be phones that have better graphics and processing power to actually make this fly? Most WM7 will have either omap4, tegra2 or better cortex a8 socs.
Speaking of updates, did anyone else's 360 start freezing after the update that contained twitter? (most recent big update)
Also can you make an arcade into a normal 360 by snapping in your old 360 harddrive?
@timmy2000 dunno about the Zune thing, but yeah, if you put your old 360 hard drive into an arcade, it's it's a 360.
If you can give me some serious, worthwhile integration with my 360, and playable games to boot, I'll say the hell with Android and get a WinMo phone. Seriously. And that's one hell of a fucking compromise.
Just give us the Xbox handheld (with a second analogue stick)
http://www.gizmowatch.com/images/xbox_handheld.jpg
Does anyone still buy new Windows Mobile phones as a consumer (rather then business user)? I mean that as a serious question.
I of course do not have a perfectly representative sample of friends and colleagues but from what I've seen phone purchases seem to run about 70% iphone, 10% blackberry, 10% misc linux smartphone (android included here along with hold out symbians and others) and then about 10% who just get a dumb phone because they're broke and/or unemployed.
Out of hundreds of phones bought in the last 3 years among people I know I don't know a single Windows Mobile user. The way the numbers on winmo keep dropping makes me think that I'm not the only one like this (it seems as if phones past contract are dropping off and no new win mo phones are being added).
I do know one person with a Zune, but they won it from a sales contest while working at Best Buy so I'm not sure that counts. I don't know anyone who actually paid money for one (vs again, hundreds of ipods). Is this a LA thing? Maybe in middle America people love these bland MS products, who knows.
@Impulsivity
Taking your anology of your friends and % numbers one would guess that blackberry would be dying and everyone and their mom would have one. The Reality is last quarter blackbery sold over 8mil and Iphones sold 7 mil. With NOKIAS selling over 21mil. You do know that nokias have over 45% of the worlds smartphone market, not IPHONE. But then again your world is only in your 20 or so friends.
With that being said, My next phone will be the HTC HD2.
@Impulsivity considering Blackberry has a larger market share than the iPhone, and actually increased its marketshare MORE than the iPhone over the past year, your friends are a bit behind the curve in the trendiness (though you try to portray it as the other way around).
;)
WindowsMo 7 would have to be a really huge jump because no WindowsMo phone can runs games of any worth right now.
@Plazmic Flame
HD2 can, easily... the problem is that there is only a limited amount of OpenGL 2.0 games for it