RSSMicrosoft: Build Your Own Xbox Game
By Ed Oswald | Published August 14, 2006, 12:56 PM
Microsoft plans to open up its Xbox 360 game development platform to the masses with the launch of XNA Game Studio Express, due out during the holiday season. The Redmond company says such an offering would benefit the entire gaming industry by nurturing the ideas of new development talent and providing beneficial experience in game creation.
Anyone with a Windows XP computer would be able to use the software, available for an annual $99 fee. This fee would permit users to build, test and share their games on Xbox 360 consoles, as well as gain access to development resources.
Microsoft says this is the first time novice developers would be able to enter the industry without a large initial investment.
In a keynote address at Gamefest 2006, Microsoft's annual game developer event in Seattle, group general manager Chris Satchell said several schools had already agreed to include the software as part of their curriculum. He also said opening up the platform would benefit all Xbox 360 gamers.
"By unlocking retail Xbox 360 consoles for community-created games, we are ushering in a new era of cross-platform games based on the XNA platform," Satchell told the audience. "We are looking forward to the day when all the resulting talent-sharing and creativity transforms into a thriving community of user-created games on Xbox 360."
Microsoft also plans in 2007 to release a similar tool for professionals, which it says would fundamentally change the way games are developed. The move could also give it a leg up on the PlayStation 3, as analysts say Sony's history of closed proprietary systems means a similar offering is fairly unlikely.
"This is a competitive tactic that speaks to Microsoft's strengths as a tools company and positions particularly well against Sony's historic weakness with tools," analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group said. "If it works, and there are a lot of gamers who would like to convert their ideas into games, it could create a whole new generation of game developers."
A beta version of the software will be made available at the end of this month, with the final version slated for release during the holiday shopping season.
OHHH, Yeah I cant wait Im finally goin to be- ble to run Linux on it.
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|hmmm... sounds interesting, but I seriously doubt that we will see any good content until the scheme is cracker/broken so that the 99$ a year thing goes away, and up until someone ports an OS using it.
With this much opening, will we see torrent-xbox?
that would be sweet... well, anyway i can see more then games on it, and that will be a whole new post sometime.
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|Sony Have already annnouced similar stuff for PS3, without a subscription.
http://www.gamasutra.com...ws_index.php?story=9290
In summary, we are going to let you develop for the PS3 using the Linux platform, and toolchains, but you wont get access to the dedicated hardware and physics engines. (I would suspect this also to be true for the XBox scheme, as I doubt they would create a level playing field for both homebew and commerical games).
Are we allowed links to sites that post inpartial news, or does Betanews only allow Pro-Microsoft news?
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|I'm sorry. Nothing pro-Sony can be linked on this site.
Your Betanews account will be deleted in 3... 2... 1...
Enjoy oblivion. =p
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|This has been a long time coming but I'm not paying an annual fee for it. I've been writing code in VBA for MS Office for years, and there's no extra fee for that, tho of course Office isn't free to start with. Then again, the support is free via the excellent MS dev newgroups. I've written a few solitaire games inside Office but that's only for the fun of writing them. I wouldn't be interested in paying a fee to do the same thing on Xbox.
I'm just not that serious about writing game code. However, making dev tools available to the masses, albeit for a fee, will go a long way to expanding the Xbox platform. Presumably it will eventually also allow keen gamers to create mod packs for existing games, which can extend the commercial life of a game for years. Take Quake and Unreal, for example.
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|the hardware will be compelte obselete when this dev software takes effect.. i see future when PC gfx cards are already 4x more powerful!!!
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|annual fee **** off!
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|XNA Game Studio Express
Microsoft has recently released XNA Game Studio Express ($99), which is a more basic version of it’s XNA Framework, which will allow anyone with a Windows (gee, no Apple support?) PC to design Xbox 360 (gee, no PS3 support?) video games. Actually, on the surface I think this is pretty cool. Good idea. Here’s where it becomes a bad idea.
According to Microsoft vice president Peter Moore, the XNA Game Studio Express, will let anyone with the desire, create their own video games and then share them on Microsoft's Xbox Live online game service.
Let’s recap, shall we?
Pay $99 for a cool video game programming toolkit. Good idea if you’re so inclined.
Develop your great ideas for video games and possibly launch a lucrative career as a video game programmer. Good idea if you’re so inclined.
Share said designs & hard work with other Xbox live gamers. Maybe a dumb idea, as someone may steal your idea & pawn it off as their own.
Share said designs & hard work on a Microsoft sponsored web site, which they no doubt will be perusing so they can “innovate”. A company known for stealing ideas & crushing competitors with anti-competitive tactics. An EXTREMELY dumb idea.
Makes sense if you’re Microsoft though. Why pay programmers for the next great idea in gaming, when you might be able to get it for free. Hopefully the people who use this product won’t be blinded by the Microsoft PR machine. If their smart enough & talented enough to design video games, they should be able to blow away the smoke screen.
Just say NO, to Microsoft.
I’m Guessing
http://imguessingblog.blogspot.com
imguessingblog@gmail.com
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|I'm Guessing too..
I'm guessing you're anti-microsoft.
I'm guessing you are also short sighted.
The games and ideas that come from this are likely going to be games that would otherwise be shareware, freeware or not even developed. And it gives novice developers a chance to show their skills and break into the market. Certainly a great resume addition for someone looking to go pro.
addition to resume:
- Developed simple Xbox 360 arcade game that ended up being downloaded and played by 2 million users.
Yeah.. we should all boycot Microsoft for coming up with such an awful idea.
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|Is it just me or does this feel like it's a way for Microsoft to counter Sony's strategy of encouraging homebrew via Linux on their PlayStation 3 console?
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|One MS VP, Peter Moore, said the program is basic compared to the pro tools, which cost tens of thousands of dollars. Hmmmm. I hope that doesn't translate to See Spot. In 3D. See Spot run. In 3D. See Spot get patched. In 3D.
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|Would that be a 2d or 3d game? ;)
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|This is really cool. I hope it brings about some great games, and at least gets interested people into this profession. Good job.
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|I am somewhat confused. I thought that console makers made their money on the games, not the console. So if I develop a game for Xbox and decide to sell it, do I have to give a portion of that to MS? What if I make my game open source?
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|I guess the $99 annual fee is enough to justify it.
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|I think the developer pay a small license fee for each game sold. As you may know, hardware doesn't make much money.
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|Microsoft is trying to get an x-box into every household - the more games available for it, the more compelling (theoretically) the justification.
Sounds like Microsoft is willing to forego short term profits to try and win long term.
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|If you want your game to become popular (like Halo) then chances are you're going to have to spend millions on advertising, packaging, distribution, etc. I'm not saying that you can't do it all yourself, just not too likely. You'll probably need to ink a deal somehwhere down the line.
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|According to http://www.eweek.com/art...2/0,1895,2003099,00.asp
it's a free download with a $99 subscription.
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|Open source game thats a tricky one but Microsoft might allow it since everyone involed in the project would need access to the tools more subscriptions for them but since there would be no royalties for Microsoft to collect they might make an agreement that it can only be available in the Xbox gold section since the more content the more people are likely to pay for a gold subscription.
Guess this could be a win win situation since Microsoft would get additional content and the people working on the poject wouldn't have to worry about things like monthly server charges and stuff plus instead of being hidden somewhere on the net and hope that word of mouth gets people to their site being on the Xbox site would be instant exposure.
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