Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Tablet PC Games

Posted by Zonk on from the games-for-long-meetings? dept.

sushant_bhatia_progr writes "eWeek has an article on how Microsoft Corp. is readying a Tablet PC game software development kit and a new Tablet-PC-specific game, both meant to attract new developers and users for Tablet PCs." From the article: "The Redmond, Wash., software maker is co-developing both the SDK and the new game, called Arcs of Fire, in conjunction with software partner 3 Leaf Development. 3 Leaf officials did not respond to a request for comment. Microsoft expects to release a first beta of both the new game and the SDK in early January."

3 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Screen wear by skinfitz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In other news - tablet PC screen protector sales expected to surge.

  2. first up... by justforaday · · Score: 2, Funny

    First up, a Nintendo DS emulator!

    --
    I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
  3. As a tablet pc owner and user... by JackAsh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... I welcome our new game overlords.

    But seriously, I do own a Tablet PC, the Toshiba M200 (a damn fine machine BTW). Tablet PCs are really not that good for gaming. There's no controls on board, the screen is not touch sensitive but eletroresistive (which is good for writing, bad for turning the machine into a Nintendo DS) and the battery life is already short enough without eating up massive CPU cycles into games.

    With that said, I see absolutely no reason why a machine like the M200 (convertible) or slate models that can be "docked" into a keyboard and mouse location can't be used as a regular machine with regular gaming.

    Other than, of course, the insane obsession laptop manufacturers have with including crappy video cards, like the Intel Extreme Graphics 2!!! Now with extra ram-shared crappyness! Because at intel, "w3 @re teh suxx0rz".

    At least the M200 has a Geforce 5200 (although one with only 32MB of VRAM). If you ask me Microsoft pushing for decent video cards would do a million times more good than any pen input game SDK will ever do. But then again, I'm probably being as visionary as I was back in the Doom days ("Mouse?! Why would I ever need a mouse for an FPS game? My keyboard does everything I need, thank you very much").

    -Jack Ash