Microsoft Going Mobile

In a recent interview with BusinessWeek Online, Studio Manager of Microsoft's Casual Games Group, Chris Early, commented that the software giant has plans to make a major push into the mobile games market sometime during the first half of 2006. But rather than go the same route as Sony and create an entirely new portable device, Microsoft would stay strictly to cell phones and wireless handsets, developing and publishing a variety of mobile titles and software.

"To date, Microsoft's gaming experience in the mobile space has been opportunistic. It has been based on licensing. It hasn't been a coordinated effort." You may recall the recent announcement by mobile entertainment company In-Fusio that it had obtained the Halo license. "But next year, you'll see our first coordinated effort moving into the mobile space, and we'll want to make sure that as many people as we can reach are aware of it. We'll have a marketing campaign around this push."

With a more casual approach to the games it plans to develop, Microsoft's main goal is to establish an even larger gaming community, with an interconnection among the PC, Xbox, and wireless software. "What we're looking to do from a casual-games standpoint is let people have one game experience across any device where Microsoft software works, be it the Xbox, their PC, or their cell phone. They will have one gaming identity on all those devices. They'll be able to play across all those devices."

For the full interview with BusinessWeek, head on over to their website.