Lately I’ve been busy cleaning out 20 years of junk I’ve managed to collect, both physical (Whitesnake T-shirt anyone?), and virtual (old, old, old WordPerfect notes, poems, and stories I wrote, many with my good friend Algis Brown back in those ancient days of yore.) No link to Al, I fear – he lives in the wilds of Lithuania, where the Internet is a strange and random beast. Anyway, I found one of my literary masterpieces from my Senior Year of High School (1990), a little poem called A Squirrel’s Tale, and I thought I’d share… Enjoy, or Weep; the choice is yours. 
A Squirrel’s Tale
I wonder, and I muse,
and think how it would be
to exist a squirrel-less tail
and live a life so free.See the squirrel’s tail
dancing ’bout the leaves.
It jumps and dips, life so frail
all about the tree.I watch, and I stare,
and grin amusedly,
for a tail that has no squirrel
flits about the tree.It must have been some distant day
when that poor squirrel was blown away.
Yet still the tail frolics
as though it knew no other way.
With thanks to the ever-witty XKCD.
Ok, I’ll admit it – I’m a font whore. Probably comes from my early days as both an English major and a technical writer. Spending thousands of hours pouring over badly-written documentation gives one incentive to find a preferred typeface, and I’d have loved to have had this handy chart as a (humorous) reference back then!
I’m also intrigued by the fact that Windows Live Writer gives me a rather large list of fonts to choose from – and so as an experiment: Palatino! Segoi UI! Lucida! Impact!
Right! Enough of that – enjoy the chart! (And for the record, Palatino for the win!)
Great little site out there called Government Attic that submits Freedom of Information Act submissions, and then publishes the results. A recent find was this NSA Department of Defense general-purpose supercomputers document. Geeky, but cool!
Had some minor sinus surgery the last few weeks, and the meds have pretty much put me out of commission for anything other than loopy, Oxycotin-fueled reading sprees on the couch. Will be back with some more soon!
I’ve been in the games and tech industry for a long time – over twenty years now. And one thing I really love about this business is how technology continually advances. Back when I was a kid my Dad bought a then-amazing, 20 megabyte HardCard for our IBM PC clone. Today I have an eight gigabyte USB memory stick “key” from LaCie on my keychain; that’s a 400-fold increase in capacity, now jingling in my pocket for something like $20. Similarly, I love seeing games and game technology platforms advance.
An industry friend Mark Deloura (now over at Google) recently pointed out a fantastic Javascript implementation of what was once the coolest, best looking PC game on the planet: Another World (or Out of this World in the US.) This came from the days when French game companies were known for doing weird but cool titles that didn’t sell – was sort of artsy niche that wasn’t taken too seriously. Those days are now long past (thank you UbiSoft!), but I still think it’s astounding to find what was once a full, high-end, cream of the crop game now running purely in Javascript in a browser window. As the author says, “No plugins, no ActiveX, no Flash. Just need a modern browser…”
Does make one wonder what the next wave of games will look like. The actual hardware platform is becoming less important. What really matters is “enough” horsepower to run the games, a robust development environment, display surface(s) to show them, and connectivity to your social graph and the network. The next decade is going to significantly change how people think about and play games much more so than the last… it’s going to be an amazing time!
We’ve seen a lot of excitement around our Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone 7 announcements. Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone 7 represents one of our first steps toward enabling consistent identity and rewards (such as Xbox LIVE achievements) across games and platforms, and additional social, connected game experiences with friends. Specifically, we announced that some titles would be able to use Achievements (and associated Gamerscore), 2D Avatars, Leaderboards, and enable asynchronous gameplay. We also recently announced the availability of the Windows Phone Developer Tools, and that’s led to people asking questions about how to access these Xbox LIVE services.
To answer, it’s important to understand that we have a managed portfolio for Xbox LIVE titles on Windows Phone 7. As we looked at how the mobile gaming industry was evolving, it was obvious that there’s a significant problem with the “race to zero” – or having too many, mixed quality titles available on a marketplace. Too many offerings makes it very hard for any specific title to stand out (no matter how high-quality), and negatively impacts the overall business ecosystem by making it almost impossible for developers to earn a fair return on their work. Our goal with the Windows Phone 7 games that utilize Xbox LIVE services is to cultivate a portfolio of high-quality titles that are regularly released – this is very similar to the portfolio management we do for Xbox LIVE Arcade titles.
Anyone can develop any title they wish using the Windows Phone Developer Tools; there’s no obligation or requirement to use Xbox LIVE or other services in those titles. However, titles wishing to use Xbox LIVE services must have a relationship with Microsoft; if you’re interested in being considered for our portfolio (and use of Xbox LIVE services), you can mail wpgames@microsoft.com. If you’ve got the right stuff, we’ll hook you up!
I’ve also received a few questions around how a user logs into Xbox LIVE on the phone, how Silver or Gold works, what the experience is of playing games, inviting friends, etc. I’ll try to gin up a post on that in the next few weeks… in the meanwhile, let me know what else you’re curious about and I’ll try to dig into it with the team!
We had a lot of great responses to my “Your Thoughts on Xbox LIVE and Windows Phone” post – well worth reading if you haven’t already. That said, over the last few months I’ve had a few folks ask how we decided what Xbox LIVE features we would bring to mobile. Some of those questions had a subtext of “do you guys get that mobile is a different space?” I’m pleased to say that yes, we get it… and that we actually put quite a bit of deliberate thought into what features we’re delivering for Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone 7, and when.
Gaming on a phone is fundamentally different than the wired-in-place experience of gaming on a console or PC: phones travel everywhere with their users, and they are always connected to the network. Windows Phone 7 represents a significant step toward our vision for a multi-platform games and entertainment offering, with our first steps focusing on enabling consistent identity and rewards (such as Xbox LIVE achievements) across games and platforms, and additional social, connected game experiences with friends.
Today’s technology-driven mobile culture enables people to connect with each other wherever they are. We use mobile phones, the internet, social networks, instant messaging and e-mail to stay in touch; access to friends and information has never been easier or more ubiquitous than it is now. This ubiquity, however, brings new challenges – we’re all busier than ever! With new entertainment devices and social experiences vying for our attention, we all want to feel that our time is well spent, and that we’re staying connected to the people and networks we care about. We also want our time and effort to be valued and rewarded. It’s tapping this ubiquitous “connectedness” that drives our larger vision for Xbox LIVE services.
This holiday, with the release of Windows Phone 7, we’re taking another step toward that vision by enabling gamers to access Xbox LIVE wherever they are, connecting with friends, checking leaderboards and participating in LIVE-based social gaming whenever they want. Whether they’re playing on their phone, an Xbox 360 console or through Games for Windows – LIVE or the web, the LIVE service will be the social thread that connects all of these platforms and people.
So what does all of that that mean for Windows Phone 7 and Xbox LIVE specifically? Well, we sat down and thought hard about what Xbox LIVE should mean to a mobile user, and what sorts of experiences were most appropriate. As we worked through our plans, we began to crystallize three major principles (or “pillars,” as Microsoft often likes to call them.) Similar to Charlie’s “King for a Day” post, I wanted to share a bit of our thinking by giving you a quick snippet of the guiding principles we used when planning Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone 7.
The Three Pillars of Mobile Entertainment
Our vision for Xbox LIVE is to bring gamers the entertainment they want, with the people they care about, wherever they are. Three major pillars will guide our development efforts:
Simplicity Matters
Gamers who are familiar with Xbox LIVE on the console or Games for Windows – LIVE on the PC expect a consistent, unified experience for their gaming, and the mobile experience must be the same: everything must work as the gamer expects it, and must be seamless and familiar. Mobile gamers who experience Xbox LIVE for the first time should feel an instant appreciation for the simple, intuitive way that they can connect to and share their gaming experience with their friends.
Everything Counts
Any time the gamer spends playing a game, no matter how small, should be respected. Games should automatically save the player’s progress, and any actions taken in-game should be allowed to count toward the player’s larger goals in your title. For games that target multiple platforms, this might include adding benefits to console versions of the game when the player engages in short play sessions on a mobile device. It is important for the time that a player spends in a game to be both recorded and rewarded. Awarding achievements is a valuable way of rewarding the player for his or her efforts, and it is an essential part of the Xbox LIVE experience.
Let Friends Play Together
Games should make it easy for gamers to connect with their friends and to form deeper connections with them through frequent, shared, online experiences. Xbox LIVE allows gamers to participate in play experiences with each other through game invitations, leaderboards, and by comparing achievements and gamerscore. Deeper social bonds are promoted by displaying players’ status updates and their personalized Xbox LIVE avatars.
Though Xbox LIVE now has over 23 million members, it’s important to recognize that Xbox LIVE isn’t the only social network with a gaming audience. Games can connect with other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter and make it easy for players to share gaming experiences with friends (such as game invites or leaderboards) who might not have an Xbox LIVE account. Friends may be located in multiple social networks, and gamers should be able to play with them all.
While this won’t answer all of your questions, I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty strong set of principles to build our mobile gaming vision around. Would love to hear what you think – and what else you’d like to see in the future!
Picked up an iPad last week, and though the purposeful omissions are annoying, it’s a great device – think it’s probably killed the idea of netbooks for once and for all (though there’s plenty of space for low-priced, connected laptops with keyboards for content creation). Anyway, will write some thoughts on the iPad later, but I had to share this video. Apple may need to start handing out kittens with the purchase of every iPad… genius!
Pixels Video – brings a tear to the eye of an oldschool gamer like myself. And makes me realize I used to be eight when I played some of these games. Enjoy!
Just a quick post to point you to some “I Love Windows Phone” wallpaper. Got the shirt (seriously!), now I’m trying to find the sticker for my laptop! More soon – have a few posts brewing in my head.
