Microsoft announced some of its launch developer partners yesterday at MIX10, when it showed the world the Windows Phone Marketplace. Called a “destination” by Microsoft, the Windows Phone Marketplace is apparently no simple ‘app store’, and will provide a range of content, from casual and premium Xbox Live games to music, carrier-specific products, and yes, applications.
Some important game studios to become Windows Phone Marketplace developer partners are: EA Mobile, PopCap Games, Namco, and of course, Microsoft’s very own Microsoft Game Studios. Apart from the announcement of the developer partners and the Windows Phone Marketplace (among other things), Microsoft also showcased some games at yesterday’s MIX 2010 event. These games showed the audience some new features of the platform, such as the Xbox Live (XBL) integration feature of XNA Game Studio in a preview of Battle Punks on a WP7 phone.
For those not familiar with the Live Anywhere concept, it is an innovative approach to cross-platform gaming from Microsoft, which allows you to synchronise and play a single game across Xbox 360, WP7S, and Windows 7 platforms. This is a truly great feature if you think about it, letting you do things like play a game at home on your PC or Xbox 360, synch it to your WP7S phone before leaving for work, and continue playing the game on the phone at the exact place you left off on the console or PC. It will also include full gamerscore and leaderboard integration. Great stuff! Joe Belfiore then gave the audience a preview of The Harvest, showing them the game’s full-3D graphics that were easily supported by the Windows Phone 7 protoype. Check out The Harvest video below:
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