Xbox Live, XNA, Top Spin 2 demo in April + an Xbox portable in the works.
First off, a dev from 2K Sports gave an interview recently, and has confirmed that Top Spin 2 will have a demo just before it’s launch on April 7th, so expect that the first week of April.
Microsoft has also released a Press Release announcing a lot of information on XNA and how it plans to expand on Xbox Live’s servers. The article can be found here, but one thing that has me excited is that they are opening up Xbox Live to allow companies to run their own servers alongside Live’s, so they can offer expanded experiences like PGR3’s Spectator Mode (Gotham TV) or creative features like Burnout Revenge’s online Rival system, where it remembers every single conflict you’ve had with anybody else forever. This move by Microsoft will help to offer less lag, and more creative features, and I can’t wait to see how a developer like Bungie will make of it.
Here is an official Microsoft XNA Presentation page as well. More news will be happening at GDC this week as well.
Also, Dean Takahashi, who is writing the book, The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: The Real Story Behind Microsoft’s Next-Generation Video Game Console, has posted an article online outlined why he believes an Xbox portable/iPod killer will come out in 2007 from Microsoft. This author was at Microsoft last year to interview people like Xbox Live’s Major Nelson (Larry Hryb, Director of Xbox Live Programming) and I have a feeling that this guy is correct in his “theory”, which you can read about here.
Even though we may not see the fruits of any of this news for a while, the news is still very good for the future, especially when it comes to XNA and Xbox Live, which is where Microsoft has a true advantage in this next-gen console war with Sony.