PocketMatrix

Microsoft have just announced that game development targeting Windows Mobile 7 will be based on XNA or Silverlight.

Microsoft's App Store for Windows Mobile will be called "Windows Phone Marketplace" and will take a 30% commission of app sales.

More information in this .

I was interested right up to the point where they said that there's no custom shader support, at which point I shook my head in disbelief and thought "not for me". I really don't see the point in making a "standard" hardware platform like that and then crippling it. (Well I guess really they want to keep control, but it's a bit of a turn-off).

Yeah, that's lame but I'd imagine that they'll open that up later and you'll be able to use the full programmable pipeline of the GPU.

I wonder if it has something to do with the shader compiler running on the device? I recall that some OGLES 2.0 implementations have had some problems with this sort of thing.

What I'm more excited about is that here's a new platform that is generating buzz and currently has zero apps. I believe that there's money to be made here for the competent hobbyist developer even if you'll only have access to a canned set of shaders for now.

Ya I'm really surprised that they plan on purposefully crippling those devices!

I've told all my MS friends just how dumb the person making the big decisions about this is. I WOULD FIGHT HIM! I WOULD!!