Zune Games: The First Look

Video: XNA Game Running on a Zune

Here's a first video of what XNA Games could look like on your Zune. The Zunepad takes an whole new meaning with this type of games.

Even though Cesar says that "Zune is a wireless music and video player first and foremost.", Zune games will open a whole new market for the Zune, and will also bring a unachieved level of value perception.

I was surprised to hear that yesterday though. Last October, the Big Zune boss himself, said that Zune games were not a top priority...

“Thus far, the market really hasn’t proven out that it is a great scenario. Customer satisfaction with what has been done isn’t that high.”

“I love games and maybe for someone with a 40-minute commute, it might be an interesting scenario,” said Allard. Expanding on his comments of negative customers satisfaction he added: “The other challenge is with the platform. The games that you bought in your fifth generation don’t run with your sixth generation. … The rate of innovation, turnover, and variety of form factors makes it a tricky proposition.

“That said, we have a lot of flexibility and a lot of magical software,” continued Allard. “What we’ve done with XNA is an incredibly portable environment designed to abstract some of the hardware differences. We’ll see where that takes us. We’re always thinking, but the Zune isn’t playing Halo 3 anytime soon.” Source

If we read this again today though...He also said that "XNA is an incredibly portable environnment". We should have listened more carefully and read between lines here...

From istartedsomething, thanks Jay T.

Comments

[Southpaw]

Is it just me or is it looking like 1st gen adopters are going to get a bit shafted when it comes to games?

[Stephane Dion]

This had to happen one day or the other. The 1st gen. Zune will have last 2 years. That's pretty good for a product of this category.

[Southpaw]

At least they're keeping the firmware up so the 1st gen adopters don't get completely left in the dark like alot of early ipod adopters.