E3: Microsoft plans joint mobile/broadband gaming portal

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft plans for mobile gaming are far bigger than a few new games. This week at the E3 Expo, Microsoft unveiled its most ambitious wireless initiative since launching Windows Mobile: A game hosting platform and social community that will link the Xbox console, Windows-based PC and the wireless handset into one network spanning application.

Dubbed Live Anywhere, the platform is designed to share Microsoft’s enormous assets in the wired gaming space with its growing portfolio of wireless games. Consisting of a portal that can be loaded into any Windows Mobile device —and later into Java phones — Live Anywhere acts as a central repository for any game stored on a user's phone; a communications and rating portal; a storefront for a carrier’s entire library of game; and a link to the Xbox Live network where aspects of the much more robust Xbox platform can be shared across the mobile network.

Chris Early, studio manager for Microsoft casual games, demonstrated the portal today at E3 showing how a customer can preview, rent or buy, and download a game over the portal from a carrier’s content catalog. The demo also showed how that user can set up a network of friends to compete against either through high-score tracking (leaderboards) or through head-to-head play, and then message one of those friends during the game to trash talk.

Finally, the demo showed how it is possible to download the game to an Xbox or PC, allowing the customer to move from the wireless to wireline network. Furthermore, while phones won’t support the enormous graphic and memory requirements of an Xbox game, Early showed that the portal will allow customers to manage their Xbox Live accounts, purchase expansion software to games they already own, and track the progress of their friends playing the same game. The platform even allows customers to share video screen shots of Xbox gameplay over the mobile network.