Saturday, July 15, 2006

Mighty Zune, what can we compare thee to?

The Zune is still very much an unknown quantity, but we do know a few key facts:
  • It will have a 400MHz processor
  • It will have WiFi
So if we look around the market to see what else is around with these in the Microsoft sector, and see what they are capable of, we might find out some possibilities for Zune version 1. Well, for a start, there are a whole load of Pocket PCs out there with 400MHz processors and WiFi, and they can all run Windows Mobile 5, and things such as IM, Excel, Outlook, IE, as well as a whole load of third party stuff such as Skype, and even Macromedia Flash playback.

Now this last item is where the fun and games could begin. A number of games on Xbox 360 - with the same development tools as Zune, remember - are created as Flash games (Hexic for example). With a good Flash playback routine, could the Zune pull this off? Wireless download of Xbox live arcade titles. Woot!

Of course, Microsoft may actually decide to limit the software for Zune, and just launch into a shell for media playback, but we don't think it would be long before someone managed to get additional code running on it.

posted by steve @ 1:15 AM   2 comments links to this post  
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2 Comments:

At 12:28 PM, Armaan Khan said...

If they incorporated gaming into Zune, I'd definitely buy one. The two things I like most in this world are movies and Xbox games. It would be sweet if I could play Frogger or Hearts online without having to sit in front of my TV.

 
At 11:42 PM, steve said...

:) I'm not sure if all Xbox/360 games would translate properly, as people would get lazy and just port them over directly. We'd then end up with a portfolio like the PSP, which by all accounts hasn't worked too well up until now (Loco Roco is great though!).

Compare that to the Nintendo DS, which is going great guns becaus ethe games are generally "different".

I think that the Xbox Live Arcade content is going to be the easiest and most profitable to pursue - think of the money made by companies selling games for mobile phones.

 

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