Live Anywhere 4 Years Later July 22, 2010

Back in 2006 Microsoft announced something grand, perhaps too grand.  Their inital attempts to bring users closer to it flopped, and the rest that came along with it just never happened.

Try to remember what was happening in 2006 if you can.  Microsoft was throwing everything they possibly could to promote the ill-fated Windows Vista.  They knew they had a bloated, unstable operating system that no one wanted, so they were going to pull every dirty trick in the book to force people to buy it.  DirectX 10 exclusivity wasn’t going to be enough since most games weren’t going to support it at the OS launch given the anticipated low install base.

On top of that Microsoft had an OS for a series of phones that were selling moderately due to the wide amount of hardware and the wide popularity of cell phones, but could have been doing better.

They also knew they had one hell of a success in the Xbox 360.  It was the biggest selling product of the 2005 Christmas season.  The games for it were selling very well, even the bad ones, because they implemented a cross-game score system of achievements.  The gamers were going crazy buying new games just to increase their gamerscores, which granted them nothing but bragging rights.

So, how do you take the massive success of one platform and try to bring that success over to your other products?  Well, you take what worked in that platform and you bring it to the other two.  The thing that worked was a unified Xbox Live profile, and the solution was Live Anywhere.

In 2006 just before the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft spoke to the press about their plans for Live Anywhere, a cross-platform integrated gaming network designed to work on your cell phone, computer and console, enabling functionality at every turn and keeping gamers connected to live even on the go.

You would expand your Xbox Live account to your PC and phone.  You could spend all night racing your car on your Xbox 360 against people on the PC or the 360, check your statistics on your PC and compare them to gamers all around the world, and while you’re on the go make some tweaks to your car’s appearance and paint job from your cell phone.  At the time, that was revolutionary.  All it would require was Windows Vista, an Xbox Live account (which if you didn’t have you’d still have to pay 50 a year to play multiplayer on PC, even without an Xbox), and a compatible cell phone.  As long as you had the game, you’d be able to use this functionality anywhere you had access to these devices.  The first games to support this revolutionary platform?  Shadowrun, which would be released on the PC and Xbox 360 and support cross-platform multiplayer gaming, and the much-anticipated PC version of the biggest seller of the original Xbox, Halo 2 PC.

Shadowrun and Halo 2 PC flopped.  By making a 2-year-old Xbox game have a Windows Vista installation requirement, most consumers either passed it up, or continued playing their Xbox versions.  Shadowrun was a multiplayer exclusive game, and not a very good one.  The revamp to the Windows Phone platform never came, and Live Anywhere took a major hit, setting it back years.  Microsoft realized they screwed their PC gamers which had been getting multiplayer for free since the DOS days and refunded anyone who paid for a Live account without an Xbox and gave everyone their fifty dollars back, making the PC component of their multiplayer games free again.

In 2008 Apple perfected their iPhone design when they released the iPhone 3G.  Finally a phone was released that was both technologically advanced enough to support everything the Live Anywhere platform promised, but was also affordable to the enthusiast consumers.  Microsoft could have made the Live Anywhere platform compatible with the iPhone, but for no reason they never did, and for years there was no progress bringing Live to cell phones.

PC vs Xbox 360 plans have been scrapped.  The reason why is the same reason gamers said PC versus Xbox 360 games wouldn’t work.  A controller is not as precise with aiming as a keyboard and mouse is.  The PC player has just too much of an advantage, and even with autoaim cranked up as high as it can go, an experienced PC player was beating an experienced Console player every time.  This is probably also why games like Halo 2 and Gears of War were never made cross compatible.  If a game like Shadowrun, which was designed from the ground up to be platform cross compatible couldn’t work, what chance did any other game have?

Windows 7 series phones are expected to have Live access, and games with achievements that will count towards your gamerscore, however given the fact that the OS has been constantly delayed, is not compatible with current phones, and better options like Android and iOS4 are currently available to buy, these are not expected to sell very well.

I really was looking forward to this technology when it was announced, and while it never fully realized its potential (because Microsoft would never release it on the iPhone), it was a failed giant step which promoted smaller successful baby steps.  Games for Windows Live is widely adopted by many game developers, enabling achievements, stat tracking, and messaging between the Xbox 360 and PC.  I’m hoping that Microsoft swallows their pride and releases an app for the iPhone and Droid that could enable Xbox Live account control from your cell phone, but I have no reason to suspect that’s going to happen before Windows Phone 7 launches.  Maybe if it flops like the Kin, they’ll consider it longer.

What do you all think?  Was this too grand a plan? Or was the implementation of the plan doomed to failure?  Do you think it’ll ever be fully realized?  I want to hear from all of you.