GameSpot @ GDC; Tray And Play

GameSpot sat down with Microsoft's Games for Windows general manager Dean Lester at GDC and have their story posted here. Not really a whole lot of interesting stuff, except for the last paragraph which discusses a new Windows gaming feature called Tray and Play. GameSpot was shown a special version of Need for Speed Underground 2 which was put in a PC's CD-ROM drive and started loading like a console game; no installing needed.

Lester suggested that this functionality will take advantage of the generally faster optical drives that most consumers have, and that some games might be able to run directly off the disc, or use minimal caching. This new feature allegedly won't be exclusive to Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn Windows platform and could theoretically be put into games today, provided it gets planned for in development early on. Lester also commented further on the particular strengths of Windows PCs as a gaming platform--that it continues to be a strong platform both for casual gamers who may be looking to sneak a quick game in between email and Web browsing sessions, and for massively multiplayer games, thanks to the proliferation of broadband Internet and widespread use of keyboards, which continue to seem like the best tools for chatting and socializing online.