14 DAY TRIAL // Redmond-based software giant Microsoft announced the release of XNA Game Studio 4.0 at the GDC, with support for Windows Phone 7, Windows PC and Xbox, and now we can have a look at some photos with the first 3D games for the new mobile client from Microsoft. The titles were demonstrated on an ASUS Windows Phone prototype, it seems, and were built with the new development tool the company released.
According to the guys over at Engadget, who published a series of photos with the games running on Windows Phone 7, one of the demonstrated titles is The Harvest, from Luma Arcade, while another is called Battle Punks, a one-on-one sword fighting Facebook game by Gravity Bear. In addition to showcasing the games, Microsoft also demonstrated universal notifications on Windows Phone 7, it seems.
“We didn't get to see any full motion 3D camera moves, since Battle Punks is just composed of two characters duking it out, and The Harvest has a fixed camera and some pre-rendered elements, but there were indeed some real polygons being crunched before our eyes at a full resolution (no upscaling), alpha-rev, choppy framerate, and we were assured that full screen 3D was possible,” Engadget notes.
According to the news site, The Harvest was built quite fast, in only two or three weeks, and those developers already familiar with XNA in VisualStudio (which is demoed in the video embedded below) should find it simple to port their games to the new OS. Unfortunately, developers won't be able at the moment to test their software on a Windows Phone 7 Series emulator, but such a solution should land in the near future, it seems.
Microsoft also mentioned the Direct3D development platform, it seems, and developers of OpenGL apps/Games will have to port their solutions to the new OS. Hopefully, we'll see a nice range of games brought to the upcoming Windows Phone 7, yet we'll still have to wait for the MIX10 conference to learn all the necessary details on what this involves. In the meantime, have a look at some of the shots available courtesy of Engadget.
