Windows Phone 8 to support DirectX

[garyopa]

'Microsoft's secret weapon in mobile gaming'



The next generation of Microsoft phones promise to be far more capable gaming devices...

As we informed you, Microsoft announced its next mobile OS this week.

Now, it looks like next-gen phones with Windows Phone 8 will be far more capable gaming devices, as DirectX is coming to it.

DirectX will allow for game developers to "write the same game for Windows 8 and Windows Phone," a company representative said during the summit. That means WP8 devices will include more powerful hardware and "shared drivers with Windows 8 graphics and media components."

As you may know, the software underpinnings of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 have a "shared core". This, along the DirectX capabilities, could be 'Microsoft's secret weapon in mobile gaming':

Microsoft has already signed up third-party middleware providers like Havok and Autodesk to support WP8, with yesterday's Summit including multiple demos showing off the Havok Physics engine. The most encouraging aspect came at the end, when Head of Product Management Andrew Bowell noted that it took Havok "under three weeks" to port its rather gruesome "full fat" body simulation asset.

Beyond giving devs access to mature and familiar tools in DirectX, Microsoft offers another big advantage over Android: a consistent hardware platform. Calling Android fragmented may sound like a tired and ancient complaint, but it remains sadly valid. If Android devices could offer consistent baseline specs to game developers, we wouldn't need things like the Tegra Zone or PlayStation Mobile to tell us where to find games with higher-quality graphics. Microsoft may be in the midst of performing another hardware reset with Windows Phone 8 — the lack of backwards compatibility to Windows Phone 7 devices is a bitter pill to swallow — but its continued focus on standardized specs gives game makers a set of goalposts that isn't shifting as rapidly as on Google's platform.

So, do you think the future of mobile gaming on Windows Phone 8 is bright or DirectX will just bring more trouble to the already fragmented mobile game market?

NEWS SOURCE #1: Windows phone 8 Directx Mobile Gaming (via) TheVerge
NEWS SOURCE #2: Windows phone 8 to support Directx (via) ShackNews

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

[MadonnaProject]

mobile gaming has always been an "adopted" child of gaming in general. Yes there are leaps beind made in the field but its really not that amazing at this point in time.