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Tech Brings X360 Games to iPhone, Android OS

- By - Source : Tom's Guide US

Halo coming to the Apple iPhone and Motorola Droid? Probably not anytime soon.

PC World reports that on Monday Novell demonstrated a new technology that translates Xbox 360 games to portable devices such as the iPhone and the Android mobile platform. While this function will be present in Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 Phone, the Redmond company had nothing (directly) to do with the current Apple App up for display.

Monday's demonstration centered around Novell's MonoTouch technology which now supports XNA. The actual demo featured an open-source version of the Indiana Jones game Microsoft used to show how Windows 7 Phone can play games compatible with Windows-based PCs and the Xbox 360 console. The Indiana Jones title was built using Microsoft's XNA framework which in turn is based upon the .NET Framework.

But despite the competition this "porting" may bring, PC World reports that Microsoft actually supports Novell's MonoTouch project. "I can vouch that it has a strong relationship with the Mono team, and it views Mono as an insurance policy to protect customers' .NET and Silverlight investments," said PC World's David Worthington. "Does Novell benefit from that arrangement? Sure. It's like Microsoft's pilot fish; it gets the business that Microsoft doesn't want."

There's supposedly a Google Android app in the works that may hit the Market before Microsoft ships the Windows 7 Phone. It too will play games compatible with the Microsoft platforms.

Unfortunately, none of this indicates that gamers will be able to play Halo on their mobile device. However the implication of multiple platforms playing the same title--whether it's the Xbox 360, the Motorola Droid, or Apple's iPhone--is rather cool, especially when multiplayer components come into play.

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TheFace 03/15/2010 7:38 PM
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I give it 3 years before we see halo on a phone natively. The speed of phone processors is accelerating far faster than what computers did a decade ago. 3 years may be generous.

ben850 03/15/2010 7:46 PM
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Will phones 3 years from now be able to compute games like Halo? Yes. Mobile phones will always be too small to play a game such as that though..

JohnnyLucky 03/15/2010 7:49 PM
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I still think the lec screens on mobile phones are too small. That may be because I am used to a large screen lcd monitor.

NapoleonDK 03/15/2010 8:19 PM
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I game on a 22", I have a Droid Eris. Gaming on a phone is, well, it's lousy TBH. But mad-awesome for bragging rights.

Abrahm 03/15/2010 8:46 PM
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If they can make it so that a developer can make a game in XNA and publish it to Windows Phone 7, Android, and that other one with little modifications to the code, it would be awesome for everyone!

miribus 03/15/2010 8:58 PM
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Depends on what Halo we're looking for.
Halo or Halo2? Sure.
The comparatively pitiful Pentium3 733 and nVidia chip used to render those games can easily be out-done with modern processors.
Figure a single-core Atom, without hyperthreading performs roughly the same, add a low-power video chip that needs only to render 480p max... I don't see a problem here, certainly within 3 years.

dman3k 03/15/2010 9:01 PM
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And I thought I had to wait for OnLive Mobile. This is good news, but too bad my HTC Hero still wouldn't be able to play it.

dreamphantom_1977 03/15/2010 9:45 PM
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I'm still waiting for video displays in the shape of contact lenses.

Parsian 03/15/2010 10:52 PM
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they better first develop an interface so that you can game on the mobile devices... I think using brain wave based controls of the game would be the best approach... just wear a USB style brain wave translator which controls the game...

WheelsOfConfusion 03/15/2010 10:54 PM
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And people said the Mono project was a bad thing!

abhik 03/15/2010 10:57 PM
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I missed the part where the iphone was made reference too. the main idea behind the new revision of xna was that the pc, the x360 and the new windows phone 7s could share games.

matt87_50 03/16/2010 12:38 PM
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good to see. still, it would have been easier to just make everything support c++...
none the less, I HOPE IT'S FREE!!

also, halo would easily be done, but it would have to be done from scratch. Ironically, you are more likely to see a halo port on the c++ ready iphone and android - as that would have been the language it was written in - than you would be to see one in XNA thru mono or on winMo7, which is kinda my point...

idisarmu 03/16/2010 12:43 PM
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The screens are still a bit too small. If some phones had a built-in projector for presentations or gaming, then that would be MUCH better (even @480p) 32" @480p is still better than 3.2" at 480p.

fjjb 03/16/2010 3:02 AM
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does this mean clunky touch controllers for CoDMW2? oooh man!!

teeth_03 03/16/2010 3:58 AM
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I'd be happy to play all the Halo games on PC

yes,im talking to you Microsoft

acecombat 03/16/2010 11:15 AM
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Halo's fine, but can it play Crysis?

Anonymous 06/07/2010 5:17 PM
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for a great way to port apps from Android to iPhone, check iSpectrum at http://www.flexycore.com