Marios Karagiannis

I never owned an iPod. My portable music needs were satisfied by various other players, like an iRiver and a Zune HD. The latest was the one that also proved very useful when I begun developing games for the then up-and-coming Windows Phone platform. The Zune HD is an amazing MP3 player. The software was fast, fluid and intuitive (not to mention it looked absolutely gorgeous). I still use it a lot, and I am sad that it has been discontinued as a product. I always believed that Microsoft should follow the iPhone-iPod paradigm, that of having an extra product that acts like a media player, but is also able to run all the software Windows Phone can, without being a phone itself. That would catapult the platform, since developers would potentially have many more users. Oh, and I would buy one :)

Anyway, back to the feature of the title. While developing my first game for XNA, Tetrada, which essentially became my first game for Windows Phone, and then got pulled from the Marketplace, I discovered that the Zune HD hardware had a unique and amazing feature. While its (gorgeous) touch screen was capacitive (as in “reacted to touch and not pressure”) it also had variable pressure sensitivity (although I do suspect that it was implemented in an “touch area variable” way more than actual pressure sensing). So it would react like any Windows Phone, iPhone or Android phone today to touch, but if you pushed further on the screen, the hardware (and of course software) would register this push depending how strong you pushed. This little feature is amazing and gives many possibilities to game developers. For example, imagine being able to control a racing game’s accelerator or brake pedals by pushing harder. Or control the power of the shot in a football game.

This pressure sensitivity already appeared in this week’s Microsoft announcement of the Surface tablet’s keyboard, so I guess I can still hope!

I would love it if this feature returned to Windows Phones, it would make games on the platform stick out in yet another way.

Huge news from Microsoft this week.

And awesome presentation, up to the point that no information was leaked before the actual events, especially in the case of the Surface tablets, kudos for that. There was also lots of solid information about Windows Phone 8, but I will get to that in a later post. On this one, I would like to focus on the Surface tablets (codename: Hero).

Awesome design, awesome hardware, an awesome OS (and yes, I have been using it myself for a few months now – as a matter of fact, I am writing this post on a Win8RC tablet) and choice. And when I say choice, I don’t mean Apple kind of choice, which spells 32GB or 64GB, 3G or not 3G. I am talking about real choice.

At the moment, there are two Surface tablets that are going to be designed, build and sold by Microsoft themselves.

The first one, Surface RT, runs the Windows 8 RT version while the second, Surface Pro, runs – you guessed it – Windows 8 Pro. What is the difference between the two versions I hear you ask. Well, hardware wise, Surface RT is thinner, lighter, cheaper and runs off an Nvidia SoC, probably Tegra 3. It also has less storage. Surface Pro runs off Ivy Bridge i5, which means speed and power.

But the most important difference is the OS.

Surface RT can run only software written specifically for Windows RT, through the Windows Store. This makes it more of a consumption device, directly competing with the iPad, but in a much nicer package (in my opinion). If it can compete in prices, Microsoft has a winner in their hands. Another important bonus is that Surface RT comes with the latest Office suite built in, that runs on a normal desktop mode, with a keyboard and mouse if you so wish.

That is a killer feature for many.
Surface Pro can run all the software that are in the Windows Store as well as all software that Windows 7 can, including all games etc. This is a huge thing, since it’s a no compromising experience, and having used Windows 8 on pre-release versions for some time now, I can tell you it’s awesome, since they are even lighter than Windows 7 to use. This means, you can do actual work with one of these things, it’s not only a read-my-email-surf-the-web-tweet-what-I-had-for-breakfast-and-play-some-angry-birds device like all of the tablets, iOS and Android alike, out there today. Visual Studio? You got it. Photoshop? Illustrator? Flash? With a built-in double digitizer (touch and stylus with multiple pressure levels), this is an invaluable tool.
Both tablets feature the awesome cover that doubles as a touch keyboard and touchpad. Awesome stuff there.

What will I get?

It’s a tough choice. I need a few tools that I think I would not find on Windows RT, like Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Visual Studio, so I am a bit biased towards Surface Pro. On the other hand, if I was not looking to replace my current ultrabook (a MacBook Air) but I was looking to replace my iPad instead, I would go for a Surface RT, because of the characteristics it has, lighter, cheaper and with most likely better battery life.

What would be really amazing for me personally, since I mostly do Metro and Windows Phone game development these days, is if we could have a Visual Studio version for RT (VS RT?) that would compile only for these platforms. Since drivers are going to be common to all Windows platforms (including Windows Phone 8 as we learned today), it would be awesome to do Windows Phone and Metro game development on a light, silent, long battery life tablet, with a normal keyboard and mouse. That would be just awesome.

Is anyone from Microsoft taking notes?