WildTangent Orb: Turning laptops into consoles?

This morning at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, Alex St John, the CEO of WildTangent, announced a new version of the company's gaming software that he hopes will make people think twice about buying a videogame console.

Taking a cue from the growing number of casual gamers buying consoles, St John -- who is most famous for helping create the Direct X specification for Microsoft -- believes that people are itching to get their hands on videogames, but that they shouldn't have to buy a proprietary piece of hardware and pricey software titles, or even relegate gaming to one room in the house.

His solution is to take WildTangent's gaming marketplace software and tune it to work on the go, or in the living room on large TVs. The application, called 'Orb' (not to be confused with the Orb media sharing software) is designed to let anyone with a laptop and a gamepad navigate the various games available for play without having to use a keyboard or mouse. St John notes that a majority of desktop and laptop PCs that have shipped out in the last year or so can more than handle the graphics capabilities of the Wii and original Xbox, and if users are looking to use part of that software ecosystem, they don't need to buy anything new.

Orb has also been created from the ground up with a new advertising model that lets home users play titles for free -- as long as they're willing to sit through an advert from sponsors inserted at the beginning of each gaming session. St John equates WildTangent's model to that of TV programming, noting that advertisers have been more than willing to get on board, whereas users aren't always into shelling out the cash up front to play a game.

As well as advertising, WildTangent uses a micropayment system similar to Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace, with packages of credits that are purchased several at a time instead of an a la carte model. With the new system, users don't even have to invest in the micropayments if they're willing to opt-in to the advertising in front of each gaming session.

In addition to the new software, Orb will be launching with developer support to get various titles into the marketplace. The two being announced today are Sierra Online and THQ. St John says other developers will probably want to join up to place their games on Orb in time for the release of the software, which is slated for release in April. -Josh Lowensohn