I’ve always thought this to be an extremely interesting feature, the ability to interchange online gaming experiences between Windows games and the console based games for the XBOX 360 (provided you’ve got a Gold subscription). More concretely, one can play online regardless of the platform. The current games supporting this is surprisingly small, though, which pretty much nullifies the effect. I’d expected a more spectacular launch/marketing of this (actually) killer-feature for both Vista and XBOX360. Pity.
| As you know, several games have launched under Games for Windows - LIVE that allow PC Games to tap into Xbox Live. |
Major Nelson highlights several changes coming with the 1.2 release:
- Support for offline Achievements (so you can add to your gamerscore when not connected to the internet).
- Ability to see if your friends are “joinable” in games.
- Additional UI features.
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Windows Live Writer is an application from the Windows Live™ branch which Microsoft is slowly deploying. It’s a tiny piece of programming that hooks into existing weblogging services seamlessly. I haven’t tested all of the services yet, but I reckon the popular ones ought to work (I’ve published to Blogger and WordPress successfully).The concept is basic and the best thing is, it works. By adding a blogging account, Writer downloads essential files – like CSS-stylesheets and other data – enabling advanced rich real-time editing. Editing posts is just like “writing” them right onto the page.
Outside of the basic Rich Editing features, there’s nothing more impressive to see – it’s an editor. Oh yeah, it includes a limited spell checker, though I’d like to see it evolve a bit more.
Conclusion: Windows Live Writer is a nice concept and started in the right direction. As with any Beta-application, there’s still room for change and improvement. I hope Microsoft will continue to do so, as I might become one of Writer’s frequent users.
