Paul Thurrott - Windows 8 Secrets

While the new Metro-style digital media experiences in Windows 8 are almost purely consumption-based, they nicely complement the already rich and mature digital media applications that Microsoft has included in Windows for years. Photos is a simple and attractive, and touch friendly, way to enjoy your photos, no matter where they’re stored. Xbox Music provides a device-like interface for playing music online or off. And Xbox Video integrates nicely with Microsoft’s online marketplace, providing a handy way to access TV shows and movies, at home or on the go. It even lets you play videos through your Xbox 360, using the handy Xbox Companion app.

Together, these apps provide a decent set of basic consumption capabilities. But over time, Windows 8 will be improved both with updates to these apps and by new Metro-style apps that provide additional digital media functionality. As with everything else in this pioneering new OS, what you get in the box, so to speak, is just the beginning.

• Understanding Windows 8’s new game-related features

• Finding and acquiring Metro-style games for Windows 8

• Learning about the features of Xbox LIVE

• Understanding how Microsoft has integrated Xbox LIVE with Windows 8

• Using the Xbox Games app to discover Xbox 360 and Windows 8 games

• Using the Xbox Companion app to find content and play it on the Xbox 360 video game console

If the rise of touch-based devices like the iPad and smartphones has taught us anything, it’s that people love to play casual games. And while some hard-core gamers will cling to their high-end gaming devices—say, the Xbox 360 video game console or Windows-based PCs—this audience is a minority. Most people enjoy games but don’t have the time or energy to devote to all-night deathmatch contests in virtual worlds. And the changes Microsoft has made to Windows 8’s built-in games functionality reflects that fact.

Windows has always included at least a handful of casual games, most notably the now-classic Minefield and Solitaire. But with the switch to immersive, full-screen, Metro-style experiences in Windows 8, Microsoft is likewise moving its game efforts into this environment. So the new game experiences in this release are tailored to Metro and are largely designed around the multi-touch interactions that will be common on tablets and other touch-screen devices.

This chapter examines the game-related functionality that is new to Windows 8 and covers what you need to do to get up and running with this new generation of touch-based gaming experiences. We don’t focus on the legacy features that carry forward from previous versions.

Thanks to the dynamic nature of its new apps platform, the Metro-style apps that Microsoft includes with Windows 8/RT will change over time, so it’s highly likely that the apps described in this chapter will appear somewhat differently over time and will include additional features. This is normal, and as a general statement, it’s probably fair to say that the Metro-style Xbox apps you use will provide a superset of the functionality we describe in this chapter.

Windows 8 can, of course, run traditional Windows games that run under the desktop and provide full-screen experiences as well. The capabilities listed here are in addition to legacy features.

In Windows 7, Microsoft bundled several fun games that ran within the Windows desktop environment, as one might expect, as well as a container for games, if you will, called Games Explorer. This time around, Windows 8 instead integrates with Microsoft’s popular Xbox LIVE games and entertainment services. It includes a new app called Xbox Games, a central location for discovering, downloading, and buying new Xbox LIVE games for both Windows 8 and the Xbox 360. And of course, you can find and download more casual Metro-style games through the Games area of Windows Store.

Note, however, that Windows RT cannot run traditional Windows games that run under the desktop.

The differences between Xbox LIVE games and other games can be important if you’re a bit more serious about gaming than the casual gamer. But we’ll discuss the vagaries of the Xbox LIVE service—and what it means to be an Xbox LIVE game title—later in the chapter. For now, let’s examine how Metro-style games differ from their predecessors in earlier versions of Windows.

• Full-screen, immersive experiences:Like all Metro-style apps, Metro-based games are full-screen, immersive experiences. They provide a so-called chrome-free experience with no visible OS-based user interface elements such as toolbars, window handles, and so on, and feature smooth, flicker-free performance with adaptive layout capabilities that ensure that these games look great on any PC or device, regardless of the screen size or resolution.

Consider the game shown in Figure 10-1. Here, you can see a game in which the entire screen is literally used for one purpose only: for the game itself. No other UI intrudes on this experience.

Figure 10-1:Windows 8 Metro-style games are full-screen, immersive experiences.

• Multi-touch and sensor compatible:As with games on smartphones and other tablet-based systems like the iPad, Windows 8 Metro-style games integrate with underlying system capabilities such as multi-touch and the gyroscope and other sensors and devices. This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities, such as driving games in which you physically move a tablet in space to steer, accelerate, and brake, or interactive games in which the device’s cameras are used to interact with the outside world.

On the flip side, these games are also generally designed to be used with other input devices. So if you’re using a mouse- and keyboard-based PC instead of a tablet, you can still play.

• Integrated with Metro experiences:Like any other Metro-style apps, Metro-style games fully integrate with the wider Metro experiences. This means that edge and corner UIs such as the Charms bar, Back, Switcher, and Start are all available during gameplay. For example, in Figure 10-2, you can see the Charms bar being displayed over a game.

Furthermore, you can receive notifications during gameplay. This can be helpful if you’re whittling away a few minutes before a meeting or other event, and you wish to be alerted when it’s time to get back to work. A typical notification, again being displayed over a game, can be seen in Figure 10-3.

Figure 10-2:Metro experiences such as the Charms bar are still available while playing a game.

Figure 10-3:Notifications still pop up onscreen during gameplay, too.

Metro-style games also use the standard Metro-style Settings interface, which is available via the Winkey + I keyboards shortcut or through Settings in the Charms bar. This consistency means that you will always know where to go to access game options, permissions and ratings capabilities, as shown in Figure 10-4. That said, many games will opt to use their own interface for in-game options.