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Windows Phone Microsoft's Portable Game Console: Microsoft's Wake Up Call?

Microsoft has said that Windows Phone platform is their official mobile gaming platform. Are they dreaming, or in need of a wake up call? Full opinion and analysis by Nathan Evans.

ajlopo5605d ago (Edited 5605d ago )

I have to say I love the Win phone. Having a great time keeping up with my xbox live, playing some great games and the phone works brilliantly. The article states that the phone only has 5000 apps, however Android and iphone did not start out with hundreds of thousands of apps, it has to start somewhere. Actually the device just hit over 6000 apps and has been growing at almost 1000 apps/week. I believe that is pretty good. All I can say is it, for me definately works better than the iphone I had, and my wife's android. Also everyone that I have shown the phone to wants one.

dazreah5605d ago

I have one too and its an amazing mobile os love the live games can't wait to see more.

ManGastaS5605d ago

Im waiting for my Samsung Omnia 7, next week... I cant wait more :(

mcstorm5605d ago

I have to agree with you all got the hd7 after moving across to android from wimo and I was really liking the android os it was in a way a updated version of winmo and I thought wp7 was going to be too locked down like the iPhone but when my contract was due I only had 2 phones in mind desire HD or hd7 as I missed having a big screen like I had on my hd2 and I decide to give wp7 a go and got the hd7 and glad I did. Being able to access my work emails, sharepoint and one note for work was amazing. Then being able to access Xbox live my home server and decided to get Zune pass which is worth the £8 a month for unlimited emails. But 2 lads at my work went for the desire HD and have had quite a few problems with them. Slowing dieb and having to reboot them to having to rest the phone after the 2.2.1 update as GPs blutooth kept drioping amung syncing email problems.
I think MS have it right with wp7 in they keep control of the os like Apple do and set rules for devices and this was wino problem as anyone could use the software on any spec and do what they wanted to the os and this caused the problems wimo fell into and I think over the next few years android will come across the same problems as it is built in the same way. I don't know if wp7 can get no1 spot but could push MS to get in the top 3 in the world esp if Nokia take up wp7. I think there is alot more to come from the os2 esp with skydrive and live mesh MS are deof turning things around after a bad 10 years.

gamingdroid5605d ago (Edited 5605d ago )

I just got an HTC HD7 as well and love the phone, the interface and the games so far are nice.

The only things that bother me are:

a) WP7 lacks features and sometimes minor consistency i.e. it is still first generation. Looking for the update.

b) WP7 still lacks apps, despite the 6000 on the marketplace so far. This is improving everyday.

c) This is a hardware related issue, but I wonder how long that button on top of the device used to disable the screen lock will last?

Otherwise, the metro design (tiles) and the social networking/email integration is top notch!. I love it!

Spinal5605d ago

I like the look of the WP7 UI. would prefer that over my ios UI on my iPhone 4.

An a WP7 was going to be my next phone but alas it was not meant to be. Ever since i saw the PS Phone a smartphone with a slideout Playstation pad. Its total Win even if it dont play PS games. Running emulators on it is Total win. Emulators + Buttons = Perfection.

joeorc5605d ago

I think some may say im a lil bia when it comes to Mobile platforms..lol well i do work on mobile platforms but it's not like im not going to support as many as i can. I think the big thing is pretty Much Smartphones of all flavors are going to do quite well in the Mobile Game space.

any where from quick to play to full RPG's can be done since Bluetooth controller's work on many Smartphones it would not really matter if your Phone was just touch enabled there will be a way to get your controller.

hell Games could be packaged with a bluetooth controller with 4 or 5 free games to work on many flavors of Smartphones. And with Some Smartdevices having HDMI out

you could have a mini game console to hook upto the tv combined with for exampe lil controller's like this

http://www.engadget.com/201...

or like this one

http://zeemote.com/

Wikkid6665605d ago

Love my LG Quantum. Love the OS and the games are great.

I want complete Live gaming though. Buy the game and you get it on the 360 and the WP7. I want the ability to play a multiplayer game against 360 users.

At that time MS will be completely heading in the right mobile gaming direction.

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70°

Microsoft Gaming Revenue Drops 7% Year-on-Year, Content and Services Down 5%, Xbox Hardware Down 33%

Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.

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simulationdaily.com
Jin_Sakai20d ago (Edited 20d ago )

Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.

dveio19d ago

To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.

Jingsing19d ago

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Tanktopmaster9219d ago

Once they re-evaluate exclusive all will be fine….

S2Killinit19d ago

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

Jingsing19d ago

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Tanktopmaster9219d ago

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

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70°

Xbox boss: Memory crisis could impact next-gen hardware pricing

Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.

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gamedeveloper.com
Eonjay21d ago

When does this end? Its killing everyone. Consoles and PC. And for what? AI? The benefits of AI are completely outweighed by the negatives. And the government should have never allowed one company to buy up all the RAM.

Lexreborn222d ago

This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.

This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.

I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet

Fishy Fingers22d ago (Edited 22d ago )

I mean.... what?

We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.

You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.

Lexreborn221d ago

Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.

They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.

If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.

It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie

Sitdown21d ago

You don't really know how this works huh?

Profchaos22d ago (Edited 22d ago )

Helix is going to be stupidly expensive

Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential

I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought

That's going to be ps6 vs Helix

Eonjay21d ago

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Eonjay21d ago

While this does seem to be the case, I am encouraged by the statement from Microsoft about wanting to provide affordable options. If this means a Series S style Helix, at least there will be something affordable being offered.

XBManiac21d ago

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

blacktiger22d ago

It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs

pwnmaster300022d ago

Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.

DarXyde22d ago

Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.

LucasRuinedChildhood21d ago (Edited 21d ago )

The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.

Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.

Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.

DarXyde21d ago

LucasRuinedChildhood,

For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:

1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.

2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".

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50°

'The big things that we're thinking about'

In an exclusive interview with Game File, new(ish) Xbox boss Asha Sharma and Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty explain their vision for Microsoft’s gaming division

Read Full Story >>
gamefile.news
Agent7523d ago

A good start would be to release games to go with the console. My Xbox Series X has gathered dust virtually from launch. My advice would be to ditch a next console and release games on PC, PlayStation and Switch. Another idea would be a hybrid console based on Xbox Series X tech and go the same route as Nintendo. Another idea would be to pull out of gaming altogether. Plenty of options there.

Reaper22_20d ago

Why would they pull out? They have the momentum. Sony has been getting nothing but bad news lately.