Sonic the Hedgehog: Ep II to feature synchronous gaming between Xbox & Windows Phone

Back in 2010, we first reported that Microsoft was planning to bring the ability of "three screens and a cloud" to modern devices. That involved a demonstration of playing a game on the a Windows Phone 7 Series device, pausing it and then picking it up on the Xbox 360.

Users salivated over such a feature, yet here we are in 2012 and it still does not exist between the Xbox 360, Windows Phone nor the PC. However... Sonic the Hedgehog: Episode II, due later this Spring, is evidently going to be the first title to support such a feature.

The Official Xbox Magazine site (oxmonline.com) ran a story this evening featuring a "hands on" demo of the new Sonic game destined for Xbox 360, Playstation, iOS and Windows Phone (called erroneously "Windows Mobile 7", grrr...). At about the 4:20 mark, we can hear Ken Balough, Digital Grand Manager on Sonic Episode II, talk about this unprecedented new feature:

"...and one of the cool things about it is that the Windows Mobile 7 (sic) and the Xbox are going to be able to work in tandem in ways that are completely new. So when you pick up the Windows Mobile 7 and you'll be able to play Sonic Episode II, save it, stop, boot up your Xbox 360 and pick up right where you left off. And that's a really cool thing Microsoft has going between the devices and I'm a huge fan of it..."

Call us crazy, but that sounds exactly like the feature first demonstrated two years ago that the world has been waiting for on their phones, perhaps the coup d'état between gaming and mobile that Microsoft desperately needs.

Could this Spring be the begriming of a whole new Xbox-Windows Phone interaction? We anxiously await. Check both videos after the break...

From 2010:

:

Source: OXMonline; Thanks, Cory P., for the tip!

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.