Chinese mobile giant Chukong now has a planto beef up the features and usage of its widely-used middleware engine Cocos2d-x.

And the first fruits of that see the previously iOS, Android, Mac/PC and HTML5 technology adding support for Windows 8, Windows RT, and Window Phone 8.

Interestingly though the initiative has been driven by Microsoft Open Technologies Inc, which carried out some of the key porting work on the open source engine, that's used by over 400,000 developers globally.

A new store to play in

"MS Open Tech works closely with open source communities, helping all developers building apps for Windows devices" said Gianugo Rabellino, senior director, Open Source Communities at Microsoft Open Technologies.

"It is great to participate in the vibrant Cocos2d-x community, enabling a great gaming engine on Windows Phone 8 and Windows Store apps.

"We are watching Cocos2d-x apps and games being published to the Windows store with great interest, and we are committed to ensuring the best experience for Cocos2d-x developers and gamers."