Xbox Live Anywhere Stealing The 360′s Thunder?
Xbox Live is the chief draw to the Xbox 360. It’s recognized as the hands-down best execution of a console online service to date, and it’s the reason so many gamers have chosen the Xbox 360 as their online gaming platform of choice.
With the announcement of Xbox Live Anywhere (XLA) last year, and the video of it serving up Geometry Wars and UNO on the PC seen this week at CES, I can’t help but wonder if Windows Vista will actually turn out to be one of the Xbox 360′s growing list of enemies, alongside the Wii and PS3. Won’t being able to get and play XLA on your PC steal the 360′s thunder?
The quickest answer to this is that your PC really won’t have Xbox Live Anywhere on it, because your PC doesn’t have Windows Vista, it has Windows XP. But that’s going to change. Vista will be on store shelves next year, will be bought and installed, and users will see that yet another Windows release makes their current hardware slower and less capable. But I digress.
But once you have a Vista PC and XLA you’ll be able to go get Geometry Wars, UNO, and why not just about anything on it on the 360 right now. Publishers would love to let Microsoft put their stuff out to even more users — heck, the fine print might already let Microsoft put it out on the PC. You plug in the 360 game pad you buy at the store and you’re in business. Pick up a 360 headset and get chatting. You’ve got the best of the 360 on your existing desktop with a nice, high-resolution monitor that doesn’t need special cables, switch boxes, or a big corner of your family room to look nice.
With many multi-console titles also hitting the PC these days, are the exclusives for the 360 really enough to propel sales of the big green-and-white machine once XLA and Vista PCs come into their own?
Picture credit: AllPosters.com
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Jonah
