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14 new Xbox Live Windows Phone 7 games revealed, Games Hub updated
14 new games are on the way to Xbox Live and Microsoft has seen fit to further improve its Games Hub before Mango has even arrived
The popular Kinect game Kinectimals will soon have a mobile version
Published on Aug 16, 2011
Not content with the announced Xbox Live changes coming to the Windows Phone 7 Mango update, Microsoft has announced even more changes and 14 new games at the Gamescom 2011 event in Germany.
Windows Phone 7 games will soon be able to include avatar awardables, which means you can win items to dress your avatar in. Chickens Can't Fly will be one of the first release on Xbox Live to feature them, according to an official Microsoft blog.
Game add-ons will also start to appear. Beards & Beaks will allow players to purchase items using the Microsoft Points currency, which you use on the Xbox 360 and Zune. Developers will obviously be pleased they can further monetise games and it means consumers can get extra content for a game if they wish.
Fast Async will apparently improve gameplay for multiplayer, turn-by-turn asynchronous Windows Phone 7 games - hence the name. We've not anything on the multiplayer front so it's impossible to guage how much of a change Fast Async will make.
The final addition announced in Cologne is parental controls. Games with an M-rating can be controlled as well as other content considered to be mature. Microsoft points out the first M-rated game will be Splinter Cell: Conviction.
On to the new games:
- Beards & Beaks: Cave Area
- Bug Village
- Burn the Rope
- Chickens Can't Fly
- Collapse!
- Gravity Guy
- Farm Frenzy 2
- Fight Game Rivals
- IonballEX
- Kinectimals Mobile
- Mush
- Orbital
- TextTwist 2
- Toy Soldiers Boot Camp
Whilst Kinectimals is a kid's Kinect game that has you interacting with a virtual cub, it's good to see a flagship Kinect game on mobile. Plus, it may pave the way for a mobile version of Zumba Fitness or Dance Central. Or at least more interesting ways to combine mobile and console gaming.
Expect the changes to arrive 'in the fall.' The games will presumably be rolled out on a weekly basis - the order of releases hasn't been announced.
Alternatively, if you can't wait for Mango, the full build has been leaked, though, it looks like that version will soon be made out of date if Microsoft continues to add new features before its launch, which is rumoured to be in September, 2011.
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