Microsoft Talks XNA Games for Windows Phone 7

News
By Jane McEntegart
published

This week at GDC, Microsoft showed off XNA games running on Windows Phone 7 and the screenshots are pretty darn impressive.

Microsoft has unveiled its new XNA Game Studio 4.0 for developers who want to work on games for Windows Phone 7 Series, the Xbox 360 and Windows. According to a blog post by Michael Klucher, Lead Program Manger for the XNA Development Platform, XNA 4.0 packs visual studio integration, which means developers can build a single project and with just a few tweaks, have it run on all three platforms.

Klucher's post also revealed that though Microsoft will continue to support game development for the Zune HD via XNA 3.1 and migrating games from the Zune to Windows Phone 7 will be really easy, the Zune won't be included in the XNA 4.0 release. Rumor has it Microsoft will be launching a Zune HD2 later this year that will be compatible but there's no official confirmation on that.

So what does gaming on Windows Phone 7 look like? Impressive, to say the least.

Engadget describes this title, The Harvest, as "a good looking touch-controlled dungeon crawler with destructible environments." It was put together in two or three weeks and mostly from scratch.

Check the screenshots below.

Read more here and here.

Jane McEntegart
24 Comments Comment from the forums
  • micr0be
    very impressive, but we still need to c what gpu is being used and the clock speeds of the hardware mobile 7 is running on.
    Reply
  • Shadow703793
    If those screen shots are real/accurate this gives the Nintendo DS/ Sony PSP a pretty damn good run for it's money assuming the graphic detail shown in the pics are accurate and game play is easy/fun/good.
    Reply
  • micr0be
    jane .... we both know that this article is perfect for a crysis joke ... ur so teasing everyone to say it LOL!!
    Reply
  • TheDuke
    that game looks pretty sweet
    Reply
  • Ambictus
    micr0bevery impressive, but we still need to c what gpu is being used and the clock speeds of the hardware mobile 7 is running on.
    I read that Microsoft was "suggesting" the use of Snapdragons for their chips. I believe currently the Snapdragon is a Cortex-A8 with a dedicated AMD Z430 GPU. So... pretty decent stuff.
    Reply
  • micr0be
    ambictusI read that Microsoft was "suggesting" the use of Snapdragons for their chips. I believe currently the Snapdragon is a Cortex-A8 with a dedicated AMD Z430 GPU. So... pretty decent stuff.
    really ?, thats actually really good dragon runs at 1Ghz i dont know if ther are variants of the chip though. im still interested in the graphics chip running and resolution supported.
    Reply
  • SneakySnake
    yea, I need to see the specs that it's running on, cuz those graphics look better then the PS2/orginal Xbox.

    Any phone with those specs is either real big, or has real bad battery life. Or both
    Reply
  • Ambictus
    SneakySnakeyea, I need to see the specs that it's running on, cuz those graphics look better then the PS2/orginal Xbox. Any phone with those specs is either real big, or has real bad battery life. Or both
    Well the GPU in the Snapdragon is based on the GPU in the Xbox360. Obviously nowhere near as powerful but supposedly similar architecture.
    Reply
  • knownballer
    Its a real shame though because Microsoft should be much further ahead as far as mobile games are concerned but they have yet to get much traction. And we're still waiting for live anywhere and a possible zune phone to come; who knows when we'll see those.... Forget Win7 mobile being a open platform for other parties, if Microsoft cant get a flagship device out that at least competes with Google and Apple then they might as well just leave the mobile scene altogether. I'm thinking nows a good time to start looking towards buying out palm...
    Reply
  • matt87_50
    wow... thats great... except what if you want to port to ANOTHER platform??

    F U Microsoft! I have never seen a platform that forces you to use the platform's proprietary engine AND language!! this is just a con to buy you exclusives because people will find it too daunting to rewrite their game in a different language for other platforms.

    this is great Microsoft, brilliant. but include a c/c++ path too!!!

    I mean it's not even about speed any more, sure it's slightly less efficient but I'd say 'meh' to anyone who said 'c# is too high level and slower than c++' (that's assuming that you implement the runtime properly of course, like you DIDN'T on the xbox to begin with...).

    and I know c# is 'open' but still, other platform vendors aren't going to change!
    Reply