[Nerdology is a tech, toy, film, game, and all-things-nerdy blog by GamerNode contributor Creighton DeSimone. Check out all of Creighton’s updates daily at nerdology.tumblr.com.]
This week at Gamescom in Germany, Microsoft unveiled how Xbox Live is going to work with Windows Phone 7. It seems they are finally going to make good on the promise to deliver Xbox Live Anywhere… one they made during E3 2006.
Back in the dark days before the iPhone, Microsoft promised to deliver the ability to take your Xbox Live profile with you on your mobile device, see what your friends are doing, send messages, check gamerscore, and even “Start a game on Xbox, continue it on your phone.” There was a walkthrough of Live Anywhere on Eurogamer… but the video has since been deleted.
Engadget has an article from May 2006 that says:
Halo isn’t going to run so well on your RAZR, so for actual cross platform titles, Microsoft is sticking with XBLA-esque games that can translate easily to different platform, such as Bejeweled. There will, however, be major games that can be played on your Vista PC and Xbox 360. Microsoft is banking heavily on third party support for Live Anywhere, in the form of mobile friendly value-adds for 360 games, and just straight up phone-friendly casual titles.
Where did that go? And why doesn’t anyone bring it up anymore? It was announced at E3 and was legitimate enough that Penny Arcade accurately mocked the service a few months later in 2006 with a comic, and a complimentary news post.
You’d have thought Microsoft’s Zune, would have some of this functionality built in, especially the Zune HD with it’s fast processor, touch controls and 3D gaming, yet here we are, 4 years and 3 Zunes later and still no Xbox Live Anywhere functionality at all.
