The more I read about Microsoft's Live Anywhere, announced at this year's E3, the more excited I get about the possibilities for social gaming. According to the British Gaming Blog,
Live Anywhere is about accessing the features of Xbox Live - online video games, communication and digital multimedia - on Xbox 360, Windows and Mobile Phones. You get one gamertag, one set of achievements, one list of friends.
In some ways, this is a networked extension of what the (ever-innovative) Sega Dreamcast was trying to do with its hybrid game/playable memory card controllers, which were used for the wired-to-tv product and could then be dismantled and taken away to continue the game on-the-go. The experience gained in playing with the handheld was then transferred back to the console-based game when it the controller was put back together again. That was a single-player experience of pervasive access. The Xbox360 version has exploded this idea and have situated it in the connected community centralised by pervasive gaming.
As Jez comments on Joystiq, the kind of pervasiveness promised by Microsoft through this service could create revolutionary access and consumption of massively multiplayer online games. I propose that it will also enhance the potential social aspects of offline/single-player products as well. Xbox360's Live is already a kind of meta-game in which members of the community "play" with reputation and trade. They may not be explicit aims of the service, but these factors have proved to be a large part of the fun. We've already seen this emergent meta-playfulness in many online games.
Of course, it also brings closer the crazy idea of integrating game contacts, game experiences and social network applications. For more on this, check out here before and here.
