Portable Xbox Live Arcade Games?

[AzBat]

I don't know much about developing games, much less Xbox Live Arcade(XBLA) games, but I was curious what's the possibility of XBLA games(Xbox or Xbox 360) being made portable? Do XBLA games for the 360 take advantage or require the custom IBM or ATI processors? If not, is it then possible for those games(with no conversions) to be played on a different architecture like ones used for the PocketPC or Portable Media Center platforms?

The reason I bring this up is because of the recent rumors surrounding Microsoft's iPod clone. Microsoft might not be making a portable Xbox or Xbox 360, but instead a iPod like device that plays music, movies, pictures and all their XBLA games. So in essence it wouldn't be a game device that directly competes with PSP or DS, but instead one that competes with iPod.

Anyway, You can already transfer your XBLA games on your 360 to a memory card. So why not transfer them to a portable player as well? They could do all of this just by leveraging their experience in PocketPCs, Portable Media Players, etc, without the need to actually design a device that's fully backward compatible with the original Xbox or Xbox 360. Wouldn't it be really cool if the device could actually replace your Xbox360 hard drive?

Can you imagine the kind things they could do with the Xbox Live services? How about not only making music, videos available online via your Xbox 360 or Vista PC, but you could also go to retail outlets that have Xbox 360 kiosks and buy and download the content from them via the built-in wireless capability? I think that's one major hurdle with using iPods and other MP3 players, having to have a computer to get the content. With a built-in wireless capability(provided the recent rumors are correct), you get the content directly from an Xbox Live account. For example, lets say you don't have Internet or a PC at home, you could go to Wal-Mart purchase an 1800 Microsoft Points card and then right there activate it and purchase whatever tunes, movies or games, then download them wirelessly.

Anyway, I think we've brought this up once before when the drunk Allard rumor came out, but in light of the recent rumors I figured it would be interesting to bring it up again.

Tommy McClain

 

[expletive]

I've always had a feeling that MS was waiting for 3 things before releasing a portable gaming device:

1. High capacity flash memory
2. The technology to get to a point where Xbox 1 games could be played on a portable device
3. The XBLA library to mature to a point where downloading them to a portable gaming device would be a selling point

I think the biggest hurdle for XBLA on a portable device atm is that some of them may use more power than is currently possible on a portable device. It would be interesting to know if MS put an XBLA 'utilization cap' in place so that they would be able to functIon on an upcoming portable device though. Its certainly feasible from a media standpoint, its the horsepower i wonder about...

 

[Powderkeg]

I've always had a feeling that MS was waiting for 3 things before releasing a portable gaming device:

Funny, I always thought they were just waiting for one thing before releasing a portable gaming device.

1. A market that they could enter with a reasonable chance of success in their first generation, and without suffering the massive losses the Xbox has taken.


I doubt the idea of a MS handheld gaming system has ever gone beyond the question of "Do we really think we can compete with the DS, Gameboy products, and PSP all at the same time?" I think every time they've asked that question the answer they come up with is "no" and that's as far as any planning for such a system has gone.

 

[Sis]

I don't know much about developing games, much less Xbox Live Arcade(XBLA) games, but I was curious what's the possibility of XBLA games(Xbox or Xbox 360) being made portable? Do XBLA games for the 360 take advantage or require the custom IBM or ATI processors? If not, is it then possible for those games(with no conversions) to be played on a different architecture like ones used for the PocketPC or Portable Media Center platforms?

FWIW, several of the current XBLA games are Flash based, so those would be simple to port. Something like Geometry Wars would be more difficult, as the developer has said that GW maxes out one of the cores of the Xbox 360 just for the grid.

Overall I think you are on the right track. If I were to guess, I would think that any Microsoft portable would be mostly compatible to Xbox Live Arcade titles. And given Microsoft's love of product feature checklists, I wouldn't be surprised if/when they launched a portable game player that games would soon have "Xbox Boy Compatible" check box.

 

[AzBat]

I've always had a feeling that MS was waiting for 3 things before releasing a portable gaming device:

1. High capacity flash memory
2. The technology to get to a point where Xbox 1 games could be played on a portable device
3. The XBLA library to mature to a point where downloading them to a portable gaming device would be a selling point

I think the biggest hurdle for XBLA on a portable device atm is that some of them may use more power than is currently possible on a portable device. It would be interesting to know if MS put an XBLA 'utilization cap' in place so that they would be able to functIon on an upcoming portable device though. Its certainly feasible from a media standpoint, its the horsepower i wonder about...

re: horsepower, I agree. If XBLA games use the full power of the Xbox 360, then I can definitely see a problem with making a powerful enough portable device capable of playing the games. I don't see them making Xbox 1 games playable on a portable device because they don't own technology and they've already shown how difficult it is to make the Xbox 360 backward compatible with a very large, powerful architecture. Bringing that down to a portable device level would be next to impossible(at least for now).

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

Funny, I always thought they were just waiting for one thing before releasing a portable gaming device.

1. A market that they could enter with a reasonable chance of success in their first generation, and without suffering the massive losses the Xbox has taken.


I doubt the idea of a MS handheld gaming system has ever gone beyond the question of "Do we really think we can compete with the DS, Gameboy products, and PSP all at the same time?" I think every time they've asked that question the answer they come up with is "no" and that's as far as any planning for such a system has gone.

That's one of the reasons I suspect Microsoft will kind of sidestep the pure portable game market. It might be a checkbox feature of a iPod-like device, but I don't think it will be the central purpose of the device. Once they get their feet wet, they will eventually provide a portable game device. Sony did something similar. It wasn't till after the PS2 was available that Sony finally got in the market. I suspect Microsoft will feel that a iPod-like device doesn't incur as much risk as a purely game device would. Sony may have wished they had done the same.

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

FWIW, several of the current XBLA games are Flash based, so those would be simple to port. Something like Geometry Wars would be more difficult, as the developer has said that GW maxes out one of the cores of the Xbox 360 just for the grid.

Overall I think you are on the right track. If I were to guess, I would think that any Microsoft portable would be mostly compatible to Xbox Live Arcade titles. And given Microsoft's love of product feature checklists, I wouldn't be surprised if/when they launched a portable game player that games would soon have "Xbox Boy Compatible" check box.

That's right. Hexic was Flash-based. Forgot about that. I would suspect that most of the initial games would be possible on a portable player with no convversion needed. However, if Geometry Wars is an indication of future XBLA titles, then I suspect portable versions will most likely need to be converted specifically for the player. I don't like the idea of 2 different versions of the XBLA games, but it might be inevitable considering the lack of power a portable player would have.

Tommy McClain

 

[expletive]

I doubt the idea of a MS handheld gaming system has ever gone beyond the question of "Do we really think we can compete with the DS, Gameboy products, and PSP all at the same time?" I think every time they've asked that question the answer they come up with is "no" and that's as far as any planning for such a system has gone.

Based on what we've seen of the MS 'culture' i doubt it. I get the impression they feel they could be successful in any market if they wanted to. I dont think the decision comes down to whether or not they can make money in the first gen or not. I'm sure if they felt the portable market held enough strategic importance to warrant 1st gen losses they would do it.

They clearly feel that the ipod is a problem for their media delivery strategy (in that it makes it obvious they dont have one right now) so I would agree with Azbat that the device may be centered around media and play games a secondary function.

However, I cant help but feel xbox1 support would be important to provide an instant library of quality games. (along with the fact that theres been rumors of games like Halo 1 being downloadable on XBL...) I can see a device plugging into your 360 to get games, movies, music, etc., even music from your PC via media connect, could be a very simple and slick interface.

 

[assen]

Something like Geometry Wars would be more difficult, as the developer has said that GW maxes out one of the cores of the Xbox 360 just for the grid.

Duh, drop the grid, voila instant port. It's cool to have, but it does not Geometry Wars make.

Now, the dual-stick control would be harder to emulate...