Now You, Too, Can Make Xbox Games
from the unleash-the-pong-clones dept
Microsoft has announced it's making a free version of its game developer tools, meaning amateurs, students and anybody that's interested will be able to develop games for Windows, and later, the Xbox 360. Microsoft says that the software, called XNA Game Studio Express, simplifies development, and is intended to create a new pool of games developers. It's an interesting idea, particuarly since the world of console gaming has largely been closed off to homebrew and small developers, while PC games have gotten a huge boost from third-party mods and add-ons. Later this year, people will be able to pay a $99 yearly subscription to distribute their games via Xbox Live, something that could hinder the company's desire to create a community of user-generated games, but it's unclear as yet exactly how the details will pan out. Getting the games into Xbox Live opens up a lot of possibilities, including the chance that developers could charge for downloads of their games and Microsoft take a cut, like in the Xbox Live Arcade. Giving people an incentive like this to create their own games could spur a lot of interest, as well as test the idea that great games don't require the most powerful technologies. The Xbox 360's media capabilities mean it's much more than just a simple video-game console, and it could be a powerful living-room media platform for Microsoft. But for it to become that, the company has to take steps like this to open it up and allow people to play with it, to explore new uses and discover how to make it more valuable to people.
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What I wanna know is...
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Re: What I wanna know is...
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Re: What I wanna know is...
["I'd love to send a royalty check to a kid," said Moore (Peter Moore, vice president of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business), who added that Microsoft hopes to get the tool kit into high schools.]
Dunno about who "owns the rights", but at least there's some credit and royalties involved.
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Finally
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Not bad at all, but...
The $99 fee works even better if small indie "companies" of games -- really more like teams of programmers working together -- take advantage of it. Those are the games I'm really looking forward to: Clever games drawing on the strengths of a few people.
My one concern here is that this could conceivably open the XBox 360 up to security flaws in its OS and hardware. If Microsoft is hosting the games directly and controlling their release that won't be a major problems, but expect a lot of people to try to poke holes in the 360 for amusement and "M$" bashing.
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Great idea
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From a girls view
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Re: From a girls view
Anyway, yeah, this idea is cool. And as much as people bitch about MS, they come up with some pretty inventive, creative stuff.
Of course, the downside to the creativeness will be the security flaws that's bound to produce, but with the $99 fee (presumably charged by credit card) the purpotrator of any virus-type nastiness would probably think twice before unleashing it onto the Xbox network. It's much easier to track people if everyone is required to registered... with correct information.
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Re: From a girls view
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Why would they do anything different with any of their other publicly accessible hosting services?
(myspaces... etc)
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Smartest thing MS has ever done.
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Not so great.
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Re: Not so great.
Why do so many people think that in this day of communication that they actually think big M$ is going to outright steal from them? Do they honestly think microsoft wants or could even handle all the negative publicity and backlash they would get from trying ot steal someones game?
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Re: Not so great.
I gotta say your point is invalid to an extent but does bring to mind some things. I am all for this, homebrew software and games on a modded Xbox rock, so it goes without saying on the 360 they would kick a$$. I also think, no proof, that Bill let the mod community stand so he could take the ideas of the homebrew scene and apply it to the Xbox 360. Many of the features available on the 360 were done first and sometimes better on a modded box. However, I do not think MS would outright steal any one's ideas on a community program they themselves run. It would cut their own throat, no one would stay around if MS took others work and made it their own. After all, this is not the day and age Bill took DOS, it is a much more paranoid society than it was then and people watch big corporations closely.
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Umm...
The Direct X Developers kit even has all the code snipets you'd ever want to piece together your own game engine including source for HDR lighting and other nifty things. It doesn't really require much knowledge at all to churn out a decent engine, the vast majority of time is spent on story development and graphical production. So unless they're including thousands of textures and an easy mesh creator (you'd be surprised to see how many people have issues with constructing objects in 3d) I don't see much of an advantage over this than what is currently available. Unless of course Microsoft has some crazy, innovative, revolutionary development process up its sleave, but I high doubt it.
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I wonder why she hasn't replied yet. [/sarcasm]
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fellow girl geek...
first thing, they are trying something new. kudos to them. i love having tools and toys at my disposal and so do most developers.
second, havent you heard of the 80/20 rule (or even 90/10) ? if you change 20 percent of the code, its yours. so if m$ does the same to a start up game...it would be theirs.
and as mentioned before, with the quality of games already out, i find it hard to believe that any one developer could create a game of the quality we are used to. some of these core game engines have been around for a long time, the renderers, the switch states, etc. they just reuse and build on them.
this will be a place for people to show case their strengths and teams to form. lots of fun. :)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: From a girls view
and on topic, again, does anyone know how this is going to be that much different from the direct x developers kit?
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Well...
Gotta say I'm for the $99/yr subscription service. If it were free the precious server space would be filled with crap and slightly modified existing games (even though modding Halo 2's weapons to restore the Assult Rifle of Halo 1...).
Even (or especially) if I were with an idie developer group I'd read every nook and cranny of the EULA, TOS, contract, etc. to make sure the owner of the property is clearly stated. Will this start a new chapter in the trademark/copyright wars?
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I think this is a great step in the right direction.. I don't see how this could hurt anyone. These homebrew games probably wont cost to much, so if it sucks.. you wont lose out on much.
Even cooler will be communities dedicated to reviewing these games.
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Re:
they're probably trying to build up good publicity before the vista launch, which will be a blow to their image.
after all, i tried out vista beta 2 and when not running a single application vista was using 800MB+ ram
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I've been waiting
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Security, anyone?
And in response to #26, I'm running Windows Vista Beta 2 CTP as we speak right now on my laptop doing this post. I've got 496MB of DDR and 870MB of space using ReadyBoost on my 1GB Cruzer mini flash drive. With it fully booted and WMP, Windows Mail, IE 7, and the Sidebar all running (plus about 12 tray items) I'm using just over 306MB of memory, not even enough to use the readyboost, so if yours is eating 800MB of memory, perhaps you could try filing a bug report. I mean, the Beta 2 files them automatically, but still...it seems to me that your experience is very out-of-the-ordinary.
Personaly I prefer Ubuntu Linux to just about every OS out thee, but I have to tell ya, if Vista runs about 20% faster once it's actually up for sale, it might just be the first version of Windows I've ever paid for, because right now it's running only about 10% slower than XP Home was on this system. Simply put, this may be the first time I'll be dual-booting Windows and Linux because I actually like Windows rather than from necessity at work.
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Re: Security, anyone?
Enabling people to create things and then allowing people greater ease with which to distribute them is bad.
Well, that cinches it for me. After all, the internet is not a dump truck.
We need to make sure that Microsoft does not allow people to make or distribute things. Matter of fact, I think we need to take a look at this internet thingie too. it seems that with all these tubes running around, someone might make something bad, very bad, and it could get out, and like, do bad things.
So we need to shut down the internet, make it so only companies that donated to my campaign have the right to publish content. I can think of at least three companies that I would like to destroy. They didnt donate, but they do operate in my jurisdiction..
Yes, that will keep the tubes free of commercial stuff so my internets dont get delayed...
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This API thing only will increase quality of creative games as more games with less cost will start showup.There is lot of many to be made by individual game developers/designers.
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"There is lot of money(not many) to be made by individual game developers/designers."
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Question: Once your Xbox gets hit with a trojan, how do you clean it? MSAV for Xbox??
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