The success of Microsoft’s SmartGlass will depend on developer support. Microsoft plans to lead the way by including SmartGlass support in future XBOX 360 games that they create.
Microsoft’s vision for SmartGlass in their games is to provide a rich supporting role as opposed to having the player need to pay attention to two screens at the same time. So don’t worry about trying to battle enemies in Halo while looking at your phone at the same time.
In an interview with Joystiq, Corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, Phil Spencer, had this to say. “It just makes so much sense for a developer who wants to supply, maybe not time-critical information, like ‘that enemy is getting ready to shoot you,’ but information that augments what’s happening on screen.”
Spencer spoke about how SmartGlass can allow players to play games on their phone or tablet, and have the game information sync with an online XBOX game. Signal Studios’ Ascend will make use of this feature.
He goes on to use Halo:Waypoint as an example for how SmartGlass could be used to track player locations, enriching the play experience instead of competing with it. Halo:Waypoint allows users to track the location of their character on an overhead map, as well as see the locations of key weapons and vehicles in the game. The similarities SmartGlass has to Halo:Waypoint were touched upon in this article published on Windows Phone Fans last week.
It’s good to see that with SmartGlass, we’ll have one app that we can go to for all of this functionality, as opposed to having to load up a different app for every game or movie.
Source: Joystiq (via WMPowerUser)
