Game Devs Weigh In On Windows Phone 7

The mobile games industry has exploded over the past few years, driven largely by titles built for iOS and Android. The Guardian's games blog decided to investigate the pros and cons of Windows Phone 7 as a game development platform while it struggles to catch up to its predecessors. "... the easy portability of code between WP7 and Xbox, plus the wealth of online tutorials, libraries and community support, is a massive advantage, especially for smaller and less experienced teams. ... As with Xbox Live Arcade, the console's downloadable games service, Windows Phone 7 offers a curated experience, which means Microsoft controls the quality of games appearing on the device. ... [Steven Batchelor-Manning of Nerf Games says,] 'The App Hub offers a good peer review system, where other developers are asked to check over your game. This helps filter out both low quality and bug-ridden titles. We are always given a particular quality to aim for. Once it's got past this stage there is also a chance that Microsoft will veto against your game going on the platform. Ultimately, this prevents the market being swamped, but above this, there seems to be a layer of games by big publishers (EA, etc) that just step past the smaller developers in the queue. This is the biggest drawback of the system.'"

Comments

Re:Astroturfing

[hairyfeet]

The truth? You can't handle the truth! If we were speaking truth it would be thus: Apple is run by a control freak, Android is fragmented to hell and one of several products the parent company plays fast and loose with the rules for, WinPhone is dead last and will probably stay there, WebOS is nowhere to be seen ATM, and RIM is dead, they just don't know it yet!

In actuality you'll get "Android is teh shit because it is teh FOSS and thus is good (though not really, just the kernel and even then Google hasn't released the latest version) and isn't nor has it ever been fragmented (ignore those 4 versions on the shelves!)" "iOS invented everything and Steve is a God, never an asshat (ignore the arbitrary rules that don't seem to apply to itself) and their prices are NEVER high and are competitive with the other products (if you don't count the 60%+ profit margins that is) and is great!" and of course "WinPhone is a completely new idea and thus will take time (ignore all those WinCE versions behind the curtain!) to find an audience (who will run over WinPhone to get the latest iShiny) who will appreciate its ease of use and synergy (Oh God, if we don't get Halo running on this thing we're fucked! Is my resume up to date?) and like previous products simply needs to build momentum (like Zune) and find its niche (like Kin)" and finally RIM "We're not dead yet! we feel better, we really do! we feel happy, we feel happy" (bashes in back of head and throws on the cart)

So as you can see, reality and fanboyism and bullshit rarely do meet in the middle. So expect praise of the latest iShiny, Google Honeycomb Hideout, and WP7 which like WinCE will later be known as WiPe, as in you wipe your ass with it before finding an iPhone.