Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series Push Notifications Get Detailed for Gaming

Have you heard? The Game Developer's Conference (GDC) is going on right now, which is why it shouldn't go as a big surprise that all these companies are announcing things there. Yes, they'll generally have a video game/gaming twist to it, but that's okay. Especially when we have Microsoft presenting, and they're giving details on how push notifications are going to work on the upcoming mobile Operating System.

Right up until the official announcement of Windows Phone 7 Series, there came a time when multitasking came under fire. Was it going to be included? Would Microsoft really ditch such an integral feature (and one that's been highly scrutinized by the competition)? Well, at least in the form of their online "multiplayer" games, it looks like push notifications are going to be the rule, rather than the exception. As the video explains, this is going to be the best way to run these games. As we've mentioned before, asynchronous, turn-based games are definitely going to happen on Windows Phone 7 Series, and this methodology is going to make sure they run smoothly.

However, this is dealing with gaming. And while they do show that the live tiles, the ones that are displayed on the phone's "home screen", and explain that they are going to get updated in real-time, we're wondering just what this means for third-party applications, as well as first-party ones. Will there be no multitasking at all? (Outside, of course, listening to music and the like.) Will Pandora, which was noted during the initial keynote, work while you're sending a text message? These are the questions that people are still asking, and even though we may have just shed some light on it, we've certainly not illuminated the depth of the cave quite yet. MIX10 anyone?

[via Pocket Now]