Office Standard 2010 Key Microsoft Games to be fr

Microsoft is reconfirming, about the eve of Gamescom 2010, that it truly is producing sure the Windows Telephone seven platform might be a game-centric one.
On August 16, Microsoft officials confirmed previously reviews that Microsoft Game Studios is making a dedicated group to develop video video games for Windows Phones. The group also will assist recruit scaled-down, indie game makers, based on the organization.
Microsoft says the devoted group inside of Microsoft Game Studios will create video clip video games for Windows phones, assist outside game publishers and scout out little, independent game makers. Company officials also mentioned to expect Halo Waypoint, Star Wars, Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst, and Guitar Hero five to all be on the market for Windows Telephone seven once the products launch this drop.
All in all,Office Professional Plus 2010 Key, you will discover fifty titles that can be offered for Windows Phone 7. Based on a spokesperson,Office 2010 License, these “are just the beginning of a full portfolio of video games and applications coming to Windows Phone 7 this holiday – there is much additional to come. Additional titles might be announced between now and the Windows Phone seven launch this holiday season; as soon as the phone launches, new Xbox LIVE titles will be added to the games portfolio every week.”
Microsoft has a team of devoted evangelists working on convincing game developers to write Windows Phone seven versions of their items. This team is playing up the fact that developers can use the same XNA Framework and related tools as they used to build Xbox 360 games to develop new titles for Windows Telephone seven.
Microsoft decided rather than have different frameworks for each of its units (Xbox, Zune HD and Windows Telephone) it would fold capabilities for all the platforms back into the larger XNA gaming framework, mentioned Shawn Hargreaves, a Microsoft developer on XNA Game Studio.
(Hargreaves spent nine years in the gaming industry before deciding to join Microsoft. He was a lead programming on the MotoGP bike racing video games. While in college, Hargreaves developed Allegro, an open source game programming library.)
“We didn;t want Xbox developers to have to commence from scratch” when developing for Windows Telephone 7, Hargreaves stated, even though the two platforms are quite different. So “we thought about what could be extracted.” In the end, about 97 percent of what (Xbox developers) are already doing could be applied to the phone, he stated.
Microsoft;s overall advice for Windows Phone 7 developers is to use XNA for developing games and Silverlight for developing other Web applications. Hargreaves mentioned Microsoft is telling those who are building applications creating use of 3D graphics to think XNA, while those using text controls should gravitate toward Silverlight. (That stated,Windows 7 Ultimate, in some cases I know of developers using XNA to generate non-gaming content for the phones because they;ve been dissatisfied with Silverlight;s performance.)
The bottom line is gaming developers interested in targeting Windows Phone 7 need to learn the C# platform, Hargreaves said. Hargreaves, a C++ developer himself, stated it took him two weeks to learn C# and 1 month to become “an expert.”
Microsoft is in the process of bringing its Game Studio environment to Windows Phone seven, said Michael Klucher, a Lead Program Manager for the XNA Development Platform team. His group also has started building Windows Telephone seven developer kits, such as a racing game kit and a puzzle game kit. There;s not some “magical potion” that automatically optimizes video games to run on Windows Phone seven, he said, but the Game Studio could aid developers move the bulk of their codebase, art and much more to forthcoming phones.
“You do need to tune for the touch screen and high-resolution display,Office 2010 Pro Plus,” Klucher mentioned. “You also have to think about how your game would tie together across different kinds of units,” like PCs, gaming consoles, phones and much more.
(Klucher has worked on the XNA Game Studio since its original inception, and has worked around the design of features like XNA Framework Content Pipeline, Game Studio Connect about the Xbox 360 and the evolution of XNA Game Studio for the Zune platform. He started his careers at Rainbow Studios, working in the animation division. He then moved to the videogame industry, with a specialization in mobile gaming and gadgets.)
A few of the indie game developers already building for Xbox are sold on Windows Telephone seven as another potentially lucrative platform.
“This (Windows Phone seven) platform is open like the Xbox 360,” said Nathan Fouts of Mommy;s Best Video games. Fouts is the creator of the Xbox Community Game “Weapon of Choice.”
“Initially we weren;t looking at developing for WIndows Phone 7 until we heard it would use XNA and C#,” he mentioned. “After that, it was a no-brainer. It was so easy our intern handled the entire port himself” of one of the existing video games to Windows Telephone seven, he said. “In two weeks, we had the whole game working and playable. Now we are just doing extra polishing.”
Phillipe Rapin of Press Commence Studio (and TwinBlades) fame — another Microsoft Xbox 360 indie game developer — echoed the same ease-of-development comments.
“What pushed us the most (to do a Windows Telephone seven game) was the ease of development,Office Standard 2010 Key,” Rapin said. “We had an Xbox version of Twin Blades and it only took two weeks for 1 of our coders to port the game onto WP7, and it worked on the device at the first attempt. With both platforms sharing a common tool -– the XNA framework — Microsoft truly eased the work of developers, with virtually no investment needed and on top of that they gave us tech and home business development assistance.”
Rapin mentioned the way Microsoft is structuring the Windows Telephone seven Marketplace and gaming hubs also is appealing.
“Microsoft’s gaming hub is definitely additional thorough not only in ensuring that great games have far more visibility in the marketplace, but also with providing them with the additional value of Xbox Live services such as leaderboards and achievements linked to Xbox,” he stated.
Any other Windows Phone 7 developers available writing (or thinking about writing) games for the Windows Telephone 7 gadgets coming this holiday season? Why/why not?
(Image above is from a slide deck on developing for WP7 from Microsoft Developer Evangelist Mike Ormond.)