I want to see the tegra really being worked. Show what the tegra is really made of. Push for beautiful 3D games,
If you can get some exclusive hits to the Zune HD then all would be set.
I think a port of the game Portal would be perfect for the Zune HD. Portal is a game that you can pick up and put down. You can get engrossed in it and love it, but if you need to you can stop and come back to it, which is perfect for this type of super portable device. What's even better is that something like Portal could have endless possiblities and expansions or download/updates as you can just keep making new levels, or simply just rearranging levels. At that point consumers could even make levels with a level editor. What's important about Portal is not just the concept of a physics 3D fps puzzle, but the complete style that it has. The dry humor is amazing, and the quality is what makes it great. Considering it's been rated as pretty much the only perfect game in existance, I would highly suggest pursuing Vavle and seeing what they can do. Get Valve on your side and it's good for everyone.
The tilt accelerometer in the HD seems far more responsive then the iPod Touch (from every comparrison I've seen), so I get the feeling that it could be a very interesting movement system for the Zune HD.
I'm imagining tilting the screen forward, left, right and back to move, where the more the tilt the more you move, but yet it remains under control. To jump you bounce the Zune HD, and of course if you tilt and bounce you have the nature action that would be. Then since you don't want to cover the screen much with your fingers, there might be a small area on either side of the horizontal screen for what would work as a thumb spot to aim, weapons, cursors, etc. I would suggest to use the availble physical buttons if possible, This sort of system is really just a basic FPS style control, but I really feel that if can either be done beautifully, or terribly.
Other FPS (First Person Shooters) would be awesome, but I think really making them design for the size and abilities on the Zune HD is critical. It's one thing to through up an old game and let you play it back as you remember, it's a much more impressive thing to really look at how you can interact with the Zune HD to make that old game amazing, and play it in a way previously not realized. Also be careful of design for the sake of being cool. A poorly done tilt sensor games maybe be cool, but could be very annoying after the intiate coolness factor wears off.
If it was possible to do multiplayer, then definitely push for it. I know the Zune HD is only a sometimes connected device, so making multiplayer the only option isn't good. But if you can connect with near Zune Hds or even just ones over the internet, then that would be very impressive
Examples for FPS: Portal, Half-Life series, Halo, Call of Duty, Metroid Prime (Haha good luck getting it liscened), Counter Strike: Source, Unreal Tournament, Perfect Dark, Golden Eye 007 for N64 (that would make me cry if I could play that on a Zune HD), or even ports/versions of more advanced Crysis or BioShock. For the older one a port of the old game probably would run given the tegra's power, but the newer ones would definitely have to be a tuned down smaller version. I think on something like the Zune HD, a game that you could play over and over is far better vs one with just a short story you play through and are done.
For non FPS, I wonder how easy it is to use the touch screen given its size. There are some real time strategy games which would be awesome just to have on you always. The old warcraft games. Age and Empires. Command and Conquer. Games like this can basically have infinite play since you can always just try a different map with a different CPU player setting, and try multiple ways to win. I would find that more valuable over a short FPS game that just was like a teaser for a Full console or PC game.
Other fun games I could see playing on the Zune HD would be the Worms series. I could see the tocuh screen lending well to aiming, and the cuteness of the character is just another attraction for consumers to just fall in love. As I think about it there are a lot of older games that would see weak on a full computer because they aren't as complex, but to have on you on a super portable like a Zune HD would just be awesome, and a reminder of great times in the past.
Driving games I see as an obvious choice. But given the lack of buttons I would find it hard to distingush between different titles for driving game. What does Forenza have over Project Gotham when it's on a Zune HD?
Over all setting the bar and showing off what the Tegra can do is the first priority. If you can show that it really is amazing at producing rich 3D games on such a small device, then you are going to have consumers and developers flocking to you. Getting those fan favorites that are loved is important to show there is depth in the design and you're not just trying to say "hey look we can do driving too, we can do fps roo, see it's all good?" Finally, the best games for such a device are ones that you can stop and start easily. If that means something as simple as saved states, so if you quit you can come right back, then ok, but possible games that are just more intuned to picking up whenever are best. From what I've heard about the iPhone games, people don't generally sit down and say, man I want to go play my iPhone. It's more of thing to do when you can't get to anything else. If you have a compelling way to change that, then great, but if not keep that in mind. Finally, games with no end are always going to be great. If you can just pick it up and start playing against a CPU player and it's mostly randomly generated, then you're going to have a game that's better to alwasy just have ont he device over something that you play through once, and then there's no point of going back.
