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New 360 multiplayer tool Xbox Live Party could provide a new way for developers to build games that use team play in innovative ways.
According to Microsoft, the new function – which was announced at E3 last week and lets up to a group of eight people ‘party up’ and play games together not just within in-game multiplayer sessions but across different games – has the potential to be exploited “for clever game design”, says Xbox Live GM Ben Kilgore.
Speaking at Gamefest in Seattle this week, Kilgore explained that allowing players to coordinate gameplay sessions with all their friends which can be taken from game to game was one of the most requested features from Xbox Live users.
And now that it is added, there is a way to incorporate it within games that demand players split into groups – games could even use teams that overlap, share members and compete.
When new technical and certification requirements set to come into force once the system launches with the new Xbox 360 dashboard update later this year, the onus will be on developers to think “how could your game take advantage from it?” said Kilgore.
“The first run of feedback we had was that we already had a party system and that this is incompatible. But it’s not. We just want to take it to the next level,” he added.
Developers should “think about teams, think about matching” when thinking how Live party can work in their games.
