What did we Learn?
Microsoft’s first ever open house was hosted by the beautifully antiquated Park Avenue Armory in NYC earlier this month and was a smorgasbord of (mostly yet-to-be released) nerdy delights. Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices division, presented a keynote that focused on their product design cycle, cross-platform integration, the rebranding of Windows Phones, and his fandom of the Twilight series. Windows 7 was kicking about and Bing made for a truly surprising experience, but there was no news on what their plans are for Games for Windows.
There was plenty of hands-on time with Windows Phones, but no news on bringing the gaming market to the platform or integrating Live in any way. Plenty of hardware was on the showroom floor including sleek new wireless keyboards, mice, and a brilliant new HD webcam but nothing stood out for the gaming consumer, unless you haven’t already seen The Beatles: Rockband or DJ Hero. Many announcements are forthcoming and many of my questions were answered with simply, “We’ll be making an announcement about that later this Fall.”
Questions about the community and avatar-based games for Live were answered in this manner, as were those concerning what we can expect from Natal and Games for Windows. The whole day felt like an extended stay at a very cool friend's house. A really cool friend who had an open bar, a kick ass DJ (Tiesto!), and a lot of really cool toys that they were willing to share. Now we just have to play the waiting game and see what they produce.
The Zune HD
Everyone present was handed one of these little media monsters. After using it (quite heavily) for over two weeks I can honestly say that I may never go back to using an iPod. The build quality may lead you to believe that you must be incredibly careful when handling the Zune, but honestly, the thing takes a decent beating. I’ve gone through at least four iPods – I’m not very careful with things like this, but the Zune is certainly not a softy when it comes to unexpected drops. The user interface is sleek, quick, and very intuitive.
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