Multiplayer fun
During Microsoft’s keynote speech at the Game Developer’s Conference we heard that the company’s XNA Game Studio software will be able to be submitted for distribution on Xbox LIVE, but also confirmed was that XNA games, built using the next update of XNA Game Studio, are soon to be coming to the portable media player, Zune.The latest version of XNA enables game development on the Zune and developers will also be able to take advantage of the player’s Wi-Fi functionality if they wish to implement multiplayer games.
With a 240x320 display, a design for one-handed usage and a 16MB code and content limitation, building games on the Zune isn’t going to be simple and as the official XNA site states it’s going to “require some creative thinking that aligns better with mobile games.”
We can certainly expect the likes of Hexic to make an appearance, but let’s hope we'll see some innovation.
The UK release date and price of the Microsoft Zune is currently unknown.