Wild Tangent's CEO Alex St. John (the principal creator of DirectX) was at
one point in time a member of the original Xbox development team at Microsoft. Now his company has scored a very
Xbox-like distribution agreement with Dell. As a result of the deal, Dell boxes sold this holiday season will "feature
the Wild Tangent Game Console Download Manager, which is a portal to a wide variety of casual games," according to
The Mercury News.
In other words, companies like Wild Tangent are working to secure a place for their own arcade software on PCs the moment they're manufactured in much the same way that an Xbox 360 comes preconfigured with casual game software via the Xbox Live Arcade service.
We're wondering how it's all going to shake out once Windows Vista arrives. Rumor has it that Windows Vista (due summer 2006) will feature some sort of integration with Xbox Live, Xbox Marketplace, and Xbox Live Arcade. Where that integration will leave companies like Wild Tangent is unclear. The battle over the casual games market is hotting up, that's for sure.
