Kotaku
At GDC, we had the opportunity to demo a Zune running an XNA game. And it looked pretty good. So what has been Microsoft's Zune team been thinking about in the several months since then? XNA commander and chief Chris Satchell fills us in:
One of the things we talked about was the network play, and we've had people doing prototypes internally of multiplayer shoot-'em-ups both in versus and co-op.He continues:
I'm really looking forward to people using their networking ability to use peer-to-peer games...I'm sure we're going to see some peer-to-peer race games, kart-style games - those are going to be fun.While we certainly don't mind the Zune platform stepping up and getting in on a piece of the Xbox 360 action, we've seen Wi-Fi connected portables offering co-op and head to head for years. It's time for us to see more, and quickly.
Comments
my zune will be more awsome
My zune will be even more awesome then it already is
It seems like quite the R&D cost to support this style of gaming for a product not many people own. It's a lot like Wireless Music Sharing. Great idea if there were more people out there to share with.
It seems like a lot money to invest in something very few people use. It's like Wireless Music Sharing. Great idea, except not a lot of people have a Zune to utilize that function.
yay! finally some games for my zune! about time...hopefully
@Lazlo: if theres one thing m$ has a crapload of its money.
what a waste of time.
Zune has WiFi, why can't 360 have it without me shoving $100 down M$ pie hole.
NS have stained gaming enough for my liking; I'll pass.
So when are we actually going to be able to put XNA games on our Zunes?
I'd be looking forward to this, if the fricking Zune were available in Europe...
This is great for zune but hopefully it will be able to play on gen. 1 players
I agree. This is all very good, but they really need to start talking about WHEN this will be available.
is this going to work on 1st gen Zunes that are running 2.0 firmware?
My Zune will Continue to collect dust... :(
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that Apple will probably have a feature like this (p2p gaming over wifi) out on the iPod touch before MS has the chance to utilize it?
Oh well, either way, the XNA games should make it worthwhile.
Bleh. I thought I heard the Zune pronounced dead a long time ago.
Hell to the yes, I'm getting a ZUNE!
/blatant sarcasm
Dunno if I want to play squircle controlled games, games on the clickwheel iPods were very annoying.
Im just wondering if I can play XNA games on my 1G Zune (30 Gb)...
Cool but gonna have to do a lot more if they want to compete with things like spore on Iphone/touch
I love the Zune haters. True Mac fanatics at work! Odd that you hear more Mac users bashing M$ then you hear M$ people bashing Macs.
This sounds interesting and somewhat promising for those who have friend's with Zunes. And friends with Zunes that work.
I can hardly wait to get my repaired (read: refurbished) zune back from the repair shop so I can not play XNA games with my friends who all don't have a Zune.
I need some Zune friends... :(
I'd have likely kept my Zune if the damn thing just had Solitaire on it. I went back to iPod after trying to switch. Sometimes you just don't realize how much of a gamer your are until you're sitting on a toilet and cursing your mp3 player for only being an mp3 player.
Daddy, what's a Zune?
I don't buy electronics that come in poop brown.
@Lazlo: I see what you did there Lazlo.
@Lazlo: What you did, I see it.
Kinda sad how people hate for the sake of it and how many more dont bother to read or research on the subject at hand.
The article author has set the mood, and thus the lazy reader will stay at that.
Oh well!
@AgainstOne: Yes
This will come to fruition in at least a years time if not more. They touted XNA in 2006 with the Torque Game Builder and then a year later they touted the same thing acting as if it was new and they had never mentioned it before (a year ago at the same conference). The only thing different was they didn't openly tell people this time around they were not going to charge people $100 to make games that other people could play (Creator's Club).
I guess the fact that Visual C# express edition being free has a whole new light after typing the previous paragraph. It all makes sense now. They still get theirs.
For the questions above:
If you have an original Zune (30G) it will play games as long as you have the lastest version.
It is supposed to be available sometime in the late spring.
For more info go to [forums.xna.com]
This isn't entirely on topic, but I want to speak up for my little slate grey player.
I had a rather nice little Lyra that I'd been using for years, but its buttons stopped working, and its hard drive started clicking and it was time for a replacement. I deliberated for a while on what iPod to get, before finally deciding not to.
It's not that I have anything against the iPod per se, it's just not what I wanted. See, they are all very tiny and thin, and they weigh virtually nothing and that's a good thing right?
Not in my case. For some reason I was attracted to the weight and boxiness of the Zune. It's not as pretty as an iPod, but it does what I want (plays music) and it has a nice big bright screen to boot. It may not have the sexiness an Apple product (and believe me, I love Apple as much as any of you--but mostly for OSX) but it does its job well, and just feels... durable.
(I've always been rather partial to Volvo as well. I guess I'm predisposed to rectangles)
That screen looks abso-friggin-lutely tiny. I don't think I'd want to use that to play games on. I think I'll stick to my PSP and DS for my portable gaming, thanks.
@nephroth:
I love the heft of the Zune. It is a brick. It actually feels like a device. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to break others' iPods.
@PissedPS3Fan:
Don't get a flash-based Zune then, go for the bigger, harddrive-based Zunes. I have a first gen Zune 30 that has an amazingly huge screen and I would love to play games on this thing.
But the screen is so tiny, what's the point?
how are the graphics and the controls?...
The market is pretty crowded here and the ds, psp, and itouch/iphone all have wifi and all of them have supperior controls.
It's nice they have this finally going, as I wanted this to occur some time ago in response to both the ipod and the psp, but it seems like the ngage with more money and marketing might. I don't think it adds anything to the market to get me interested yet.
Free mini game tie ins to games (GTA Halo) might be cool to have and spark initial interest.
I have a 30 gb ZUNE, but since I got an Iphone I just don't touch it anymore. "The social" idea is nice but I never bother with it as there's never anybody around using it. The social should be tied into XBL (is it?) to get at least some legs under it.
The 8gbs (iphone) just forces me to be more selective with what I put on it and keep my podcasting up to date. My old 60 gb ipod enabled me to be horribly in 'media debt' and have tons of music I wasn't interested in anymore and was too lazy to remove.
@Oyn: That's the smaller (4 and 8 GB) Zune that is being shown off in that picture. The HDD-based one is a lot larger in screen space, around the size of a screen on a DS I'd say.
The concept of XBox Live Anywhere would be great on the Zune. It's got to happen sometime... hopefully soon.
LMFAOOOOO Only like 46 people own zunes.
I want achievements.
They should have made it hologrammed. Now I'd buy Zune for that.
@Oyn:
The screen is bigger than like 90% of cell phones. Your point is?
The games are said to work with the Gen.1 Zunes which is good because I didn't bother upgrading... even though I don't have exact statistics, I would like to point out to anyone saying that nobody owns the Zune... that the Zune 2.0s were among the top selling devices this past holiday season... what that says for Zune gamers... maybe nothing but I am sure everyone will love the novelty of games on their zunes...
@Thoas: LMFAOOOOO So original!
@kentmx25: @AgainstOne: @Hellicus:
It will. Finally, though. More stuff to fill it with, I have way too much room.
@ResetSmith: that's because Mac users are satisfied with their product and know what is good and what is crap. On the other side M$ people bash Macs because they are jelous. I don't care, I don't support neither of them.
* I love the Zune haters. True Mac fanatics at work! Odd that you hear more Mac users bashing M$ then you hear M$ people bashing Macs.
From what I remember of a previous article about zune games, is it's up to the developer whether or not the game will run on first gen zunes. As they would need to program in non-touch controls.
@neoraul20: Yeah. I'm sure that's it. Because when you have something so superior, the rational thought process is to tear down what isn't as superior as you think your little product is.
Peer-to-peer games are extremely common-- the mulit-player options using ad-hoc networking on the DS and PSP are peer-to-peer. It works well because marketplace for portable gaming is largely dominated by those two devices.
The marketplace for MP3 players, however, is balkanized, with one market leader (Apple, like it or not) and the emerging dominance of converging mp3 functionality on cell phones. In two more years, the concept of a separate MP3 player & cell phone will seem ancient. To some of us, it already is.
With all of that said, given the low penetration of the zune into te consumer electronics market, I'm not optimistic about multiplayer modes that rely on finding other people with a zune in close proximity. For that matter, I'm not optimistic about the prospect of widespread multi-player gaming on the zune at all. I'd be happy to be wrong though.
@Sailorcancer: Even better. Since the Zun