Windows Phone 7 Series: no realtime multiplayer gaming

Windows Phone 7 Series is Microsoft’s attempt at a big come back and reinvention in the smartphone space, but if you were holding out for a true gaming alternative to the iPhone, you might not want to get your hopes up. Microsoft has revealed that multiplayer games on the platform will be turn based only. Um, anyone for a game of touchscreen Connect 4?

One of the features in Windows Phone 7 Series highlighted at launch last month was Xbox Live integration. But the screenshots we’ve seen so far haven’t got our hopes up for Halo deathmatches on your mobile, and now Microsoft has all but killed off hopes of realtime multiplayer gaming.
In an interview with Joystiq, Xbox Live manager Ron Pessner and XNA Game Studio manager Michael Klucher confirmed that multiplayer Windows Phone 7 Series games will be “turn by turn” only, and while other “scenarios” might be on the roadmap, that’s all we’re getting for launch. In other words, Redmond only wants you and your mates to play games you can leave and come back to now and again. Battleships? Boo.
That’s a real shame, as Windows Phone 7 Series had been shaping up quite nicely as a gaming platform from what we’d seen this week at the Game Developers COnferencer, with Microsoft demoing a game running on an Xbox and Windows Phone 7 Series, and synching between the two. Expect to hear more about gaming on Windows Phone 7 Series at Microsoft’s MIX conference next week.