Windows Phone 7 – hailed by some as the ‘iPhone killer’ – has pitched its upcoming app store, the Marketplace, in the direction of Xbox gamers and developers, in the hope of establishing itself as the place to go for games on the go.
Oded Ran, head of Consumer marketing for Windows Phone 7 said that games developed for Xbox platforms would be easy to port into Windows Phone 7 apps. “We’re not talking about Halo 3,” he said. “Nobody wants to play Halo 3 on a mobile, they want to play it on a 42 inch TV with surround sound, but building for Xbox means games will be easy to port across all platforms”
It’s an interesting proposition, given that there are 4 million Xboxes in the UK, compared to 2.5 million iPhones. The main impact is on the back end, where developers will be able to use the XNA framework to port their experiences building for the Xbox to building for Windows Phone 7 gaming apps.
Developers will still have to work using the new Windows Phone 7 development tools, but Ran said he was happy for developers to be building from the ground up, and that the XNA framework would still play a big part in development.
The upshot is that Windows Phone 7’s marketplace is pitching itself as the app store for gaming, and is obviously hoping that this lures in developers and consumers alike. But this is still a catch-22: the developers won’t build unless there’s a considerable audience, and the consumers won’t come until there’s a viable, interesting, and busy app marketplace, and the time between October and Christmas, when Windows Phone 7 launches, and when most consumers will be playing around with new devices, might not be long enough.
