No Name Games

I must admit Microsoft is doing pretty well in the game development scene these days…  With the birth of XNA, they have made it really easy for just about anyone with a little bit of basic programming knowledge to make a high quality video game pretty easily.  But it seems with there new project Kudo they are going to try and make it even easier for people to make games!  “Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input.”  So really with this new tool it will make it super easy for just about anyone to make a game.  In a sense it’s like RPG Maker but way more mainstream…  So yeah, *claps* bravo Microsoft, bravo.

When I go around telling people that you can indeed play games on a Zune about 80% of them say “What is the Zune?”… It tends to frustrate me a little bit simply because everyone is so “I *insert apple product here*” happy… Don’t get me wrong I applaud Steve Jobs for doing what he does best, make his products look sexy and be very appealing. But damn it the Zune is being left in the dust! Sure Microsoft created it in response to the Ipod, but they don’t seem to be really backing it at all. It’s really good media device, and better yet with the latest update to there XNA platform you can create games and applications for it!

At the 2008 GDC they made the announcement that you could make games for the Zune along with the much bigger XNA community games announcement, but still it does not seem to get any type of love or real support. I am not going to say it is the best tool out there, and the way you have to load games on it could be improved, but the fact is that it’s still a viable platform which is being ignored.

With the launch of the new xbox experience (Microsoft revamp of the xbox live interface) they allow you to download lots of community games (games built with Microsoft XNA game framework), which allows for just about anyone to make a quick buck and to get some exposure… Which is great. But why not do the same for Zune games? It would help boost the user base of everything Zune, and allow for Microsoft to expand the visibility of there growing gaming platform.

The Zune already has Wifi capabilities all Microsoft would have to do is simply allow for wireless syncing of the Zune to the Xbox 360 and allow users to transfer Zune games to there Zune. Why they have not done any of this or really pushed the Zune as a gaming platform is beyond me! Considering Apple is already semi-attempting this with the Iphone and Ipod.

Now as for the actual quality of the Zune games, well there is a community out there who likes to make Zune games but you have to do a bit of digging to find them.  The two hottest places to find Zune games would probably have to be http://www.zunerama.com/zune-games-directory.php and http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/download-completed-games-174/

Now I don’t want anyone to think that I am trying to say I want the Zune to dominate all, and take down the Ipod and all that madness, I am simply trying to express my feeling on why this gaming platform is being ignored, it’s almost like Microsoft have distanced themselves so far from this community  that it is now like an underground thing or something.  Not entirely sure why it bothers me so much, I mean everyone is going to keep using a Ipod or Iphone, because that is what they have been told to use by the mainstream media it’s just a shame that Microsoft would release a product that clearly has possiblities and just kind of put it on the back burner, there pulling a Google!