I think that most gamers will still argue that despite it's $50 a year price tag, Xbox Live is still the standard for measuring a console's online service. While they are getting set to launch the New Xbox Experience late this fall there is still plenty of room to improve the service's capabilities and that's in areas that Sony and Nintendo (hell, even Apple) are excelling: mobile devices.

Microsoft obviously knows what they have on their hands since they are re-branding almost everything they have and adding the word "Live" to the title. At one point it looked like Microsoft was going to be ahead of the curve when they announced "Live Anywhere" with the idea being to spread the Live experience to your PC, cell phone and Zune. With Vista having had some time to spread its wings it can safely be said that Games For Windows Live was a huge flop. Something they didn't seem to realize is that PC gamers had Steam, which was already hugely popular and, more importantly, free. We're still waiting for anything to happen with Windows Mobile or Zune Social. If you ask me, Microsoft can't afford to wait too much longer to expand on the opportunity the success of Xbox Live has given them in the face of the recent developments made by Nintendo, Apple and Sony.

With the recent announcement of the new DSi it seems that even the seemingly online-phobic Nintendo is embracing digital distribution to their mobile platform. Soon enough Sony will allow you to browse and purchase games directly on your constantly improving PSP. Even the iPhone game store is up and running with the SDK readily available for anyone to create pretty much anything for the device. Of course Microsoft doesn't have a mobile gaming platform but they do have the Zune and a decent amount vested in mobile software and technology so there has to be something they can cook up. Even just the ability for me to use my Windows Live sign in (which is going to be the universal way to sign in to all your Microsoft-powered services, like the old Passport) on my phone and cue up some downloads from the Marketplace (free or purchased) or see who's online would be a welcome addition and a natural extension.

So what is it that's keeping the big M from embracing and expanding on a service that had been completely dominant almost since it launched?

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment