Microsoft's next XNA Game Studio beta supports multi-player

An expedited beta period is planned for the artistic development environment upgrade, which will now enable programmers to build multi-player games for Games for Windows Live.

For the better part of the 1980s, it was the reason young people entered the realm of programming: to have the opportunity to build something worthwhile on their own on a computer, that's as much fun to make as it is to run, and to exploit that real chance of making it commercial. The greatest game programmers of the 20th century entered this industry through a back-door flung open wide...one that was shut throughout the last decade, as commercial games became multi-million-dollar productions by design.

It was Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express which helped reinvigorate the spirit of programming as an art form, especially for an operating system where so little of the development process has recently been considered artistic. Yesterday, the company unveiled its public beta of XNA Game Studio 2.0; and while the "Express" appears to have been dropped, it still appears the company has every intention of distributing the entire toolkit for free.

The big addition to this version is a multi-player enhancement to the SDK, which will enable experimental developers to create games that can be deployed over Games for Windows Live and apparently for Xbox Live as well. But that aspect of the environment - and perhaps even the testing of it - may not be so free after all.

A posting that appeared on Microsoft's XNA Team Blog yesterday advised testers who wish to experiment with the new multi-player additions to apply for an Xbox Live gamertag that includes a membership to the XNA Creators Club, plus a special token for version 2.0 testers.

The Creators Club was created for users of the existing XNA Game Studio Express, to be able to deploy their game creations over Xbox Live - though today, those deployments are limited to single-player builds. Membership in that club still runs $99 annually.

Today, members of Microsoft's Channel 9 forum urged the company to consider lowering that fee, if it seriously wants more people to participate. As one member put it, "$99 is too much I think to play games with yourself."

The XNA Team Blog warned testers of an unusually short beta period, leading some to believe the final edition could go live as soon as next spring.