Get ready for some amazing games with Windows Phone 8

There's a lot of hype surrounding the new Windows Phone 8, announced by Microsoft yesterday at a press event in San Francisco; but perhaps the most intriguing question is how it will handle apps and games. Will it be able to compete with the power of the Apple devices, let alone the sheer abundance of apps on the Apple store?

Indeed it will. Or at least that's what Microsoft is hyping as they prepped fans for a "new wave of amazing apps" coming to Windows Phone 8.

The Windows 8 device shares similar tech with the PC version of Windows 8, allowing for Direct X support, C and C++ compatibility, "making it easier to write apps for multiple platforms more quickly".

It also means that Windows Phone 8 will support popular gaming middleware such as Havok Vision Engine, Autodesk Scaleform, Audiokinetic Wwise, and Firelight FMOD,

Fear not about the amount of apps available on the Windows Phone Marketplace, either. Microsoft boasted that they hit 100,000 apps and games faster than Android, and that developers are delivering "more than 200 new titles, on average, each day".

Currently in the works are Zynga's popular titles Words with Friends and Draw Something, both set to release on Windows Phone later this year. Gameloft also has Windows Phone versions of Asphalt 7: Heat and N.O.V.A. 3 Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance on the way as well.