RSSXbox Takes Game Development to the Masses
By Ed Oswald | Published December 11, 2006, 5:10 PM
Microsoft has made good on its promise to deliver to enthusiasts a basic development platform for aspiring game makers to produce their own games for the Xbox 360 system. In addition, it launched tools on Xbox Live that it hopes would make the process as easy as possible.
The Redmond company first announced its intentions to deliver the application in August. A Windows XP application, XNA Game Studio Express will allow anyone to try his or her hand at game development.
Microsoft says this is a boon for the industry - providing developers with a development option that does not require a large initial investment. While the application itself is free, a suscripton the XNA Creators Club would cost $49 USD for a four-month subscription, and $99 USD for one year.
Joining the Creators Club holds benefits to the developer: he or she would gain access to thousands of gaming code snippets from Microsoft and support from Microsoft's industry partners as well. Also included are white papers, starter kits, technical documentation and samples.
"When it comes to encouraging development on XNA Game Studio Express and through the XNA Creators Club, the limits are truly endless," Microsoft Game Developer Group general Manager Chris Satchell said. "What users will see today is just the beginning of the plans we have to revolutionize game development one creative game idea at a time."
XNA Game Studio Express is based on Visual C# and the .NET Framework. Other companies are also launching applications based on XNA; GarageGames' Torque X will allow for drag-and-drop development on XNA based games and is available in open beta.
To spur development using the application, Microsoft plans to hold a contest for the best game made on the platform. The winner will be published on Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft said.
"Xbox Live Arcade has opened up a wealth of new publishing opportunities for established and independent developers alike, so it made perfect sense to also extend this privilege to hobbyists and amateur programmers," Xbox Live Arcade group manager Greg Canessa said.
More information on the XNA platform is available from the MSDN Web site. XNA Game Studio Express is available for download from FileForum.
But you never here a playstation gamer say how good their online gaming is. $50? a year...yall just cheap. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
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|It's hard to believe this isn't a part of your xbox live subscription fees. Another $99/year?
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|LOL...that makes no sense in just about every way. your xbox live gaming subscription should include a subscription to a developer club? LOL that's awesome...I guess you pay for sports illustrated and you get all their other magazines free since you payed for SI? :)
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|Ugh...what? Yay for irrelevant troll posts.
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|Yeah, that's absurd.
I also paid for Windows XP - I should get Vista for free too!
Before you speak - do you actually look into what that $99 gets you??
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|It is an article about a MS product. You are supposed to just skip the reading an go straight to trolling.
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|It's easy to believe, it's Micro$oft..
At least the PS3 development kit is free, as it's basically the Linux OS, with GCC development enviroment with OpenGL and many other open API, with Sony's closed API's to access specifics of the Cell and the other PS3 goodies..
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|To bad its so freakin hard to develop for the PS3.
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|Why? Ever used KDevelop?
http://www.kdevelop.org/
PS3 being tricky to program for, is a myth..
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|This article doesn't mention at all tha XNA is also for developing Games for Windows. My impression from reading other articles (which this one doesn't specifcally call out) is that game development is absolutely free. The only thing you are paying for is support and having your xbox360 unlocked to play the games you develop. I imagine this unlocking could also allow you to play burned games but I am not sure, and to charge for that would help make up losses from pirated software from people who decide to abuse the system. I'm probably wrong; MS probably has some way to check for that.
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|Yeah.. PS3's online is free too. How's that working out? Funny, I've never seen a single PS3 owner talk about how great their online gaming is.
You get what you pay for. There's a lot you get with the $99.
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|Myth my ass.
http://dpad.gotfrag.com/...al/story/35372/?spage=4
Its definitely hard to develope for on the PS3.
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|No; clearly my point was that it seems excessive to give away a gaming dev platform, and then charge to debug it. Why should it cost $100 for me to burn a compiled program and pop it in the console I already purchased?
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|Before you speak, make the assumption you shouldn't start your comment with an a-hole remark.
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|Sony's support for Linux is lackluster lipservice at best since there is no 3D acceleration support and you when you install Linux you have to choose to give it either a 10GB or a 50GB partition on the 60GB system and can't see the PS3's partition. I do think it sucks that MS is charging another $99 for the environment but at you do have access to the machine's hardware unlike the PS3. The only real way to develop on the PS3 is currently to pay for the real dev kit which will cost you way more than $99.
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|A generic Linux programming environment isn't going to solve the problems about not being able to call the PS3's 3D graphics chips, it's deceptive to present Linux tools as PS3 dev tools, until they let customer's at the hardware it's only good for maybe 2d stuff (also not accelerated) not for real games, please note MS has already demoed an XNA powered full 3D driving game on the XNA platform running on the 360.
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|IGN reports that they were told that the dev kit "seemed extremely adaptive and easy to program for"
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/726/726255p1.html
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|You do know you can call the NVidia GPU using OpenGL right? So yes, KDevelop will work just fine...
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|You cannot call the Nvidia chip using Open GL since Linux (on the PS3) isn't supporting 3D accelerated video AT ALL at this time and this comes from the people at Yellow Dog who have crafted the most specific version of Linux for the PS3, to Quote:
"** The Nvidia graphics card is not supported beyond framebuffer mode. This does not reduce the quality of the image, but does not provide accelerated video nor OpenGL support. Refer to the this HOWTO for information about HDMI, Multi-Out and associated TV/Monitor connections." this can be found at: http://www.terrasoftsolu.../index.php?hw_cat_id=15
Please stop deceiving the masses, I own a PS3 too by the way.
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|Even if it is you can't do it with any of the versions of Linux, since you can't access the 3D hardware period. That was a big dissapointment to me when I started messing with my PS3. At least with XNA you can get to and do everything you need to to actually make a game that takes advantage of the system, I still don't like the $99 a year price tag but it beats the alternative of not being able to do what you need to, or paying what real devlopers have to pay.
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|Key word is "seemed"
Eitherway, IGN is a news reporter not a developer.
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|Wow, just read a run down over at Ars (http://arstechnica.com/articles/xna.ars) They are giving a boatload of stuff (and support)with the membership. Guess I can't even whine about about the $99 anymore. This is a case of you get what you pay for (perhaps even more).
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|Ed--you do know that wording the title and the article in the way you did is just going to cause more controversy, right?
Oh yeah--that's the whole point!
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|Maybe the title was something different before? Looks accurate to me.
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|Title hasnt changed. But yeah, looks accurate to me also
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|The title doesn't look accurate to me.
"Microsft takes Xbox Game Development to the Masses" would be a more accurate title in my opinion.
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|Everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinions :)
Latz, SB
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|Just like everyone is entitled to their own dumb-a$$ comments?
I'll stand behind my claim to the title being inaccurate. The Xbox did not take game dev to the masses. The Company (Microsoft) that made the xbox took xbox360 Game Dev to the masses. A console can't do it, the company that made the console can. So don't imply that my opinion was wrong.
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|Are you digging a little too deep into the title? I mean its not like they said M$ shoves it to $ony.
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|No I don't. It's that someone implied that I'm wrong about my opinion that drove me to justifing it. I mean.. I didn't care whether it was inaccurate or not, but to say that it is an accurate title isn't correct. My response to the OP would have been, yeah it's inaccurate but oh well. I didn't see the harm in the inaccuracy of the title.
MS shoves to it to Sony would also have been more accurate ;)
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|This is an excellent feature. A game developing contest. I wish I had time for this, could be very interesting indeed.
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|plague,
check out the fake Mark post in the sex offender story, it's classic.
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|Maybe someone will port the old Atari 2600 game Kaboom! by Activision to the 360.
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