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Windows Phone 7 Series Marketplace images

Korneel De Feyter — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:36:10 +0000

Microsoft showed all the major hubs that are present in the Windows Phone 7 Series OS, but it apparently forgot to show pictures of its Marketplace hub. Well, here you have them. The first picture shows us the main screen in the marketplace hub. Here you can choose between some sections of the marketplace, including: applications, games, music and podcasts. Gizmodo points out that the first two words Contoso and Fabrikam are place holders for Microsoft. It are two fictional company names they often use. It might be for the mobile operator app stores.

The first thing you’ll see when you open up the Marketplace is featured content. It’s — in this case — an application, but it could probably be music, podcast or a game as well.

If you dig deeper, to the application section, again some featured app would show up along with a list of other featured applications, new ones, a list of the most popular ones and subcategories.

Who is Microsoft competing with?

Korneel De Feyter — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:00:09 +0000

Yesterday I decided to try some Zune HD apps from third party developers, but it ended up in some deep disappointments towards Microsoft.

After I had installed Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and XNA game studio 3.1 I was able to load some third party apps on my Zune HD I got from zhdapps.com. I had the first app running and everything seemed fine, until I wanted to go back to the main menu. My Zune HD restarted itself.

I knew that back when the XNA Game Studio 3.0 made it possible to play games on my Zune 30 it needed to restart itself every time you closed the game, but finding out that this limitation was still present on the Zune HD made me deeply disappointed in Microsoft.
Even the reason for this given by the ZHDapps.com FAQ couldn’t satisfy me:
“Your Zune restarting is normal and it is done so you don’t crack DRM encryption on the music. This is a preventative step put in place by Microsoft and does not harm your Zune what-so-ever. Just think of it as keeping you safe.”
Why can’t a big software company like Microsoft come up with another solution than just letting your Zune restart?

This got me thinking. What’s the point of having the possibility to code games and apps for the Zune HD, but not giving developers the opportunity to put their games in a marketplace?
Zune Marketing Manager Brian Seitz said the Zune Team isn’t working on an app platform because they didn’t want to overlap the Windows Mobile team. I can understand that, you shouldn’t work separately on similar thing that don’t work together, instead the two teams should actively be working on that together.
I feel like Microsoft doesn’t know who it’s competing against.
If the Zune HD is meant to compete with the Apple iPod Touch, the Zune Team should release a full SDK for the Zune HD (XNA has too many limitations, like the inability to make internet access) and make an open application marketplace.
If the Zune HD is only targeting the niche-market of non-iPod mp3 players, than a full SDK or app marketplace isn’t necessary.

Come on, Microsoft, I know you can do it!

ZHD firmware 4.3 brings us 3D gaming

Korneel De Feyter — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:28:33 +0000

Last Friday the Zune HD was given a firmware update that added a few improvements:

Zune HD firmware update: Today we released the v4.3 firmware update for Zune HD players; this update adds support for upcoming 3d games and applications, as well as an auto-suggest feature for better text input, and other minor improvements. Enjoy!

Like you see, support for ‘upcoming‘ 3D games and apps was added, well it looks like those upcoming games are arrived at the ‘Marketplace.
The new games are:

PGR: ferrari edition, a 3d racegame
Lucky lane bowling, a 3d bowling game
Vans Sk8: Pool service, a 3d Skate game
Piano, a simple piano where you can play your own tunes on
Audio Surf: Tilt, ride your music – you choose a song that the game will turn into a roller coaster track for you to ride
Checkers, I don’t think you’ll need a description for this one

All these games are free, so don’t hesitate and download yours…

Update: Check a list with pictures and descriptions of the games on zune.net.