Xbox Live Anywhere still planned for mobile
Once Microsoft has figured out how to make it work
[Cue Star Wars scrolling text]
A long time ago (2006), in an E3 tradeshow far, far away, I sat down with Microsoft for a demo of its Live Anywhere service. The idea was to extend the Xbox Live community to mobile phones.
So, you'd be able to check on friends' achievements and interact with them, as well as play mobile games that would be tied into your Xbox Live profile.
It looked great, with a polished interface on the phone that worked seamlessly with the Xbox Live community. So I got excited and asked when it was going to go live.
Everyone shifted about in their chairs looking uneasy, and said things like, "Woah there," and "This is showing how it'll work," and "There's no set launch date in mind".
And that was the last I heard of the idea. Until now, anyway. In a talk at the Electronic Gaming Summit, Microsoft's Jeff Bell has revealed that Live Anywhere isn't dead.
"Live Anywhere is not abandoned, it's just not easy to do," he said, according to Kotaku. Although he didn't give any further details of progress, problems or potential launch dates.
On a pure 'wouldn't this be cool' level, linking mobile phones to console gaming communities makes plenty of sense.
Playing the mobile version of Geometry Wars should let you earn achievements in the same way the Xbox Live Arcade version does. And I'd love to find a way of getting my Wii Mii onto my mobile phone.
However, actually making this stuff work on a wide range of handsets is another question entirely. Oh well, fingers crossed it's not another two years before we get an update on Live Anywhere.
