Microsoft may be slow to market with its version of the killer smartphone device but Windows Phone 7 is beginning to get exciting with the announcement of a slew of games including Xbox titles.
Announced at Gamescom 2010 in Cologne, Germany, Microsoft said that there will be 50 games for Windows Phone 7 devices on release.
These games will be a mix of ones we’re already familiar with such as Bejeweled and new ones like Game Chest, which is a collection of card ad board games.
Microsoft promised that both casual gamers and the hardcore guys and gals will be covered. So with this in mind you’ll be excited to know that Xbox Live titles will be ported over including CarneyVale: Showtime.
This is because Xbox Live will also live on the Windows Phone 7 device: you can sign into your Live account from your Windows smartphone, earn achievements from it, update your avatar and keep track of our gamerscore.
Halo and Crackdown for Windows Phone 7
And the big news: there will be mobile version of games including Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst as well as a “Halo experience” for fans who can’t get enough of the adrenaline-rush game.
Okay so it’s not a Halo game but it is a mobile version of the Halo: Waypoint portal for Halo fans to watch videos and hook up with fellow Halo peeps.
Full mobile games such as Live Arcade game Rocket Riot will actually debut on Widows Phone 7.
So for those who were busy pooh-poohing Windows Phone 7 as a failure after seeing the technical preview on a Samsung handset maybe this will quell your baying for Redmond blood.
Microsoft is getting serious about mobile gaming. Very serious.
“We’re really approaching this as we would a console, so we have to deliver the breadth of games and the quality people expect from Xbox,” said Kevin Unangst, senior director of PC and mobile gaming at Microsoft.
“To have this quantity and quality of games committed this far ahead of launch, with even more to come, is a statement of support that says Windows Phone 7 will be a big success,” he added.
Greg Sullivan, senior product manager with the Mobile Communications Marketing Group said: “Depending on how you measure it, games are one of the biggest application categories in the smartphone space.”
