Microsoft Adding New Gaming Capabilities to Windows Mobile

A high-level Microsoft executive made it clear recently that his company has no plans to release a portable gaming device. Instead, Microsoft will encourage game developers to create titles for handhelds and smartphones running Windows Mobile.

To make this easier, the company is going to build a new group of gaming APIs into the next version of Windows Mobile.

Mark Spain, director of Microsoft's mobile devices division, told The Star Online that his company will add Direct 3D Mobile (D3DM) to its mobile operating system. This is a version of Microsoft's Direct X for handhelds and smartphones.

D3DM will allow developers to more easily control the graphics co-processors that are increasingly being added to these devices. Intel, nVidia, and ATi are all making multimedia accelerators for handheld devices.

D3DM will be built into the next major revision of Microsoft's mobile operating system, expected to be called Windows Mobile 2005.

Not Just Microsoft

Microsoft isn't the only company working to make its operating system more game friendly. PalmSource has announced plans to build the OpenGL ES APIs into a future version of Palm OS Cobalt. This will help Palm OS developers create high-end games and other applications that need advanced 3D graphics.

OpenGL ES is a low-level, lightweight, and open API standard for displaying 2D and 3D graphics on mobile devices.

New Windows Mobile Games, too

Mr. Spain also told The Star Online that Microsoft is going to release over a dozen games for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and smartphones by the end of this year. These will be well known PC and Xbox titles like Midtown Madness, RallySport, and the various versions of Age of Empires.

It's unlikely that the work of porting any of these games to Windows Mobile will be done by Microsoft itself. IN-FUSIO announced in February that it had signed an exclusive deal with Microsoft Game Studios to port six games to mobile devices. The titles covered in this agreement are Age of Empires 2 Gold Edition; Midtown Madness 3; Zoo Tycoon; Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge; Banjo Pilot; It's Mr. Pants; and Sabre Wulf. It isn't known if IN-FUSIO will also handle porting the remaining games Mr. Spain mentioned, or if another company will do so.

Thanks to msmobiles.com for the tip.

Related Links

• There'll Be No Xbox Portable
• Intel Unveils Next-Generation XScale Processors
• PalmSource Working to Make Palm OS Cobalt a Better Gaming Platform