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Microsoft To Enable User-Created Xbox 360 Games

Posted by samzenpus on Mon Aug 14, 2006 07:05 AM
from the play-nice dept.
XBox (Games)
simoniker writes "Talking on the eve of its Gamefest event in Seattle, Microsoft has revealed XNA Game Studio Express, a new product which will allow indie developers and students to develop simultaneously on Xbox 360 and PC, and share their games to others in a new Xbox 360 'Creators Club'. XNA Game Studio Express will be available for free to anyone with a Windows XP-based PC, and will provide them with what's described as "Microsoft's next-generation platform for game development." In addition, by joining a "creators club" for an annual subscription fee of $99, users will be able to build, test and share their games on Xbox 360, as well as access a wealth of materials to help speed the game development progress."
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[+] Game Innovation by the Bedroom Coder 47 comments
scriptedfun writes "The BBC reports on how bedroom coders might regain their place in the game development world by providing the industry 'an injection of imagination.' Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express (covered previously on Slashdot) is given a special mention, but the article points out that 'the concept behind XNA is nothing new,' citing Sony's Net Yaroze as another example. With user-generated content fueling innovation in many aspects of technology, current initiatives by the major players to provide easy access to game development tools may just redefine the face of next-gen gaming. Peter Molyneux, creator of Populous, says: 'It's 100% down to the passion that people have, and the ability to perhaps bring in other people, maybe from all around the world on the internet, and create something.'"
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  • Great! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Spunkemeyer (805072) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:07AM (#15901728)
    Now I can finally work on that "ringworld" game I've been kicking around in my head...

  • My game will be called... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MichaelSmith (789609) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:08AM (#15901730) Homepage Journal

    .... "Linux kernel"

    • Re:My game will be called... (Score:5, Funny)

      by LiquidCoooled (634315) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:25AM (#15901789) Homepage Journal
      Game registration error

      Microsoft has detected an error in the naming of your game.
      The term 'Linux' is a trademarked entity and as such cannot be used as the title of your game.

      Sincerely

      Billy boy

      ps, even if it weren't trademarked, we still wouldn't let you have it you commie pig :P
    • They're probably going to make your game run under .net as managed code. Good luck doing anything worthwhile from a low level or systems point of view under that framework.

      • They're probably going to make your game run under .net as managed code.

        This is where the idea of DRM will either work or fail. If I put my executable in as an array of bytes, will the runtime environment allow an i386 emulator to run?

      • Re:My game will be called... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by quitcherbitchen (587409) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:35AM (#15902132)

        Who cares?

        This is designed for the hobbyist/amateur game developer. A managed environment built on top of a decent framework from Microsoft will allow a much broader audience of enthusiasts out there to create games. Instead of fumbling with buggy or complicated code, they will actually get to express their creativity and fresh designs.

          • Re:My game will be called... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by guaigean (867316) on Monday August 14 2006, @11:27AM (#15903487)
            No, they're doing this because they are actually starting to lose control of the Game Development market. Recently a number of studios have begun porting and/or developing for Linux. If Microsoft loses the hold on gaming, there is very little left stopping people from switching to Linux entirely. Gaming is the reason most home systems use Microsoft.

            See, by "giving" this kit away to amateur gamers, they are essentially guaranteeing a long line of new games which only run under a closed Microsoft platform. This ensures that people will continue buying their Windows OS in order to run the tools/games. It's actually a very strategic move by MS, and unfortunately it is likely to work.

    • Re:My game will be called... (Score:5, Funny)

      by jkrise (535370) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:34AM (#15901820) Journal
      and mine will be titled: CHAIR-MAN's Flying CHAIRS ... fasten your CHAIR-Belts, 'coz this is gonna' CRASH!! It'll be like Tetris, only instead of bricks, there'll be chairs of different shapes and sizes.
      • I suspected that the point of the XBOX was to move people away from the open PC architecture that we all know, to a closed architecture that they can control.
        I heard the PS3 was going the other way. I heard PS3 was going to open up and allow hombrew in some shape or form, i guess this article is M$'s way of doing the same thing, but closed....

        My bet is that the most open system will win.
        • They are both open. If you compare them to the console market. If you compare them to the PC market, they will both be very closed. The thing is that consoles are now powerful enough to handle most home computing tasks. This means that if people move over to the consoles for home computing, they will be ripe for vendor lock in, given that the entire console industry is predicated on making money with vendor lock in. Just pay attention to the number of times you hear the statement "It's their system, so

  • Killer Feature (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hyfe (641811) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:11AM (#15901739)
    This could be a killer feature.

    There's so many extremely simple games that are insanely fun multiplayer, and will probably never, ever be released as stand-alone games.

    I'm still praying the Nintendo Wii will be opened up like this, but if it isn't, this might be what tips me over to XBOX 360. Programming for the Wii-controllers would be fun though, and I really, really want to play Pong with them :).

    • Re:Killer Feature (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CastrTroy (595695) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:51AM (#15901886) Homepage
      Well, the good news, is that the Nintendo Wii Dev Kit [digitalbattle.com] will cost somewhere around $1700. That's not too bad a price, considering the PS3 kit is rumoured to cost between $30,000 and $50,000. I'm not sure how much the full dev kit on the XBox 360 goes for. I think this could open up a lot of possiblities for the Wii. You get the full dev kit for under $2000. Not some rinky dink homebrew version, the whole thing. At this price, there could be WiiNux before we know it. And it would probably sell if it offered good multimedia functionality to the Wii, such as playing downloaded movies, and Linux games. Although I don't think Nintendo would let that fly, as people would just install an emulator, and play the Old NES games for free instead of paying for them.

      • Re:Killer Feature (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Blakey Rat (99501) on Monday August 14 2006, @09:41AM (#15902576)
        1) Nintendo's not just going to give a dev kit to every random Joe who asks for one. You're either going to have to be an established game company, or have an agreement with a decently big publisher before you're added to the list.

        2) Even if Nintendo does give you a dev kit, that doesn't mean you'll be able to release games for their system. All consoles have a logo program, and games that aren't vetted and approved can't be run. That's not to say it'll be trivial for you to get Microsoft to approve your game, but at least Microsoft is out there assuring people that it'll happen.

        3) $1700 vs. $99/year. If you're paying $1700 for something, you're basically already a full-time game developer. $99/year is cheap enough so that Microsoft is going to have tons and tons of people on their kit, and they'll be able to pick and choose the best from the lot. Plus, you can start development of your game for free... the $99 is just for access to more documentation and Xbox portability. You can develop and release you PC version for free, THEN decide to pay $99 to port to Xbox and try to get it on Live.

        4) Isn't it telling that every time Microsoft announces something truly innovative and, frankly, pretty damn refreshing, there has to be a counter-post saying that Nintendo has the same thing... even if they don't? I love Slashdot. Give credit where credit is due... this is a great move on Microsoft's part, and a win-win for every gamer out there.
    • I'm hoping that the PS3 (as has been suggested) ships with a decent and usable version of Linux. That opens the possibility of using the PS3 for almost any functionality, not just games. Of course Sony have screwed things up in the past, so I don't hold a great deal of confidence in what they might offer. Still, the Microsoft thing looks like some cheezy game development kit which only produces games that you can share with other developers. Doesn't sound very compelling to me.
      • It's interesting that you considered this to be a fault of the playstation line.

        The Playstation line has always had it's own "developer's club" in the form of the netyaroze and linux kits that they provided for the PS1/PS2. It wasn't perfect, but it was there and one of the first for a /major console/ of its kind. The PSP is the only Playstation console that has not had some form of officially sanctioned homebrew enabling feature. Perhaps it's because they lose more on the hardware that they decided not to

      • Sony's actions WRT the PSP notwithstanding, I don't think they've ever been heavily anti-homebrew. They have dabbled a little with the system, selling an official consumer user-accessable GNU/Linux kit for the PS2, and announcing user-accessable GNU/Linux as a standard feature of the PS3.

        I think the major problem with the PSP is that they don't know what to do with it, and that, more than anything else, is causing problems with them creating an officially supported home-brew environment. It's not really

  • Fragmenting the community. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2006, @07:11AM (#15901741)
    If this is anything like the UT2004 'Make Something Unreal' its quite possible that this is going to fragment the playing community into small non-viable sub-communities.

    E.g. Alien Swarm has about 4 decent servers, and a community of 100 players.

  • Well color me impressed... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Stachybotris (936861) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:11AM (#15901742)
    But this seems like a good idea in many ways. I'm a bit taken aback that MicroSoft is doing something to let hobbists flex their creative muscle, especially in such a (relatively) open way. I mean, development for X-Box and PC? That's a pretty sweet deal.

    Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure a lot of the games will probably suck eggs, but it might just turn out that we'd see some real innovation in design and concept with an infusion of fresh development blood. Because you never know, one of those hobbists/indie designers might crank out something good enough to either a) get picked up by an existing studio or b) generate enough interest from others to start up their own studio. Then it just becomes a matter of being a good enough businessman to keep things working.
    • It does, really. More interestingly this came after Bill Gates being reportedly intrigued by Xbox Mod Community [gizmodo.com] after an employee brought his own modded Xbox to show The Man, just a few weeks ago.

      From the link:

      A little over a year ago, one of the people in my group modded an Xbox, installed Avalaunch, and put all sorts of Xbox mod scene apps on the box, like XBMC, RSS readers, etc, along with some "backup" games. :rolleyes: He brought this box along to a meeting with Bill Gates. Bill saw a demo of this,

    • Re:Well color me impressed... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by IamTheRealMike (537420) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:37AM (#15901831) Homepage

      I think this is fantastic news, if only because it offers a cool and enticing way into programming for the younger generation (shit that makes me sound old ...)

      If you interview a random sample of programmers in the world today I bet a lot of the 25-30 aged ones will have got started by writing cheesy games as kids for their {Commodore 64/Sinclair Spectrum/BBC Micro}, even if they then went into corporate software, operating systems, embedded work or whatever. Learning to write software by doing databases in Visual Basic is boring. Learning to write software by doing cool games you can add multiplayer to and beat your friends at is a much better proposition.

      Wasn't the head of Nintendo saying that it's a shame games are no longer feasable for hobbyists and entry level studios? It's surprising Microsoft beat them to it, but then Visual Studio Express was designed for the home/hobbyist developer as well if I remember correctly so maybe not too surprising. Here's hoping it becomes a trend and the next generation of coders are learning threading by actually doing it, instead of memorizing lecture slides.

    • "Developers! Developers! ...."

      It's easy to make fun of Ballmer, but remember that he's *exactly* right here. MS has always made the development tools cheap and available.

      Many years ago, I worked in a university department that mostly ran OS/2. This was back in the days of the OS/2 Workplace Shell and NT 3.5- OS/2 was in many ways vastly more sophisticated than NT. Queue up NT4- I went by the campus bookstore one day to look at software.

      Sitting on one shelf was the OS/2 dev kit. ~$500, academic pr

  • Now, someone please extract the binary signing key from this "XNA Game Studio Express".
    • Now, someone please extract the binary signing key from this "XNA Game Studio Express".

      Maybe the games will run in a VM, so in a sense they will never leave XNA Game Studio Express.

      • More likely, to sign the binaries you have to upload them to a protected Microsoft server and they take care of building/signing/distributing the actual binaries for you. Hence the $99/yr cost (which isn't much really, for a hobby).

        • I just wanted to add that, ironically, if you want to do development using a very popular "indie-level" game engine you would choose the Torque engine [garagegames.com]. And to use it, you pay them $100. If you want their studio tools on top of that, it's another 100$.

          The new MS-XNA Game Studio is based on this Torque engine. When you pay your $100, you also get additional content downloads, the studio package, listing on Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA), etc. etc. These are pretty decent extras, and it's cheaper than just using T

    • The programs you write with this product will not need to be signed (at least not with the same key everything else for the XBox 360 is). This product is going to be a .NET based development environment. So the .NET runtime will be signed, and will run on the console, and will run your game, which you wrote in C#.

      The current announcements don't seem to spell out that this is based on .NET, but I'm sure it is. Microsoft has mentioned before that getting .NET on the XBox 360 was part of XNA. Also, see t [firingsquad.com]

  • Developers, Developers, Developers (Score:5, Funny)

    by hey (83763) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:16AM (#15901755) Journal
    Developers, Developers, Developers.

  • XNA & Your Rights (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eldavojohn (898314) * <my/.username@@@gmail.com> on Monday August 14 2006, @07:17AM (#15901760) Homepage Journal
    The XNA [microsoft.com] site they have a FAQ [microsoft.com] that doesn't really address my big question: If you create a game using XNA and distribute it to the community, who owns it? Are you forced into a licensing agreement? If so, is it one closer to the GPL or Microsoft's? This is very interesting because Microsoft may be claiming publishing rights to these games in the TOS for XNA.

    So it could be a standard American Idol style:
    1) trick contestants into signing away all rights they have to their work
    2) let the community decide who is the best
    3) publish their work and profit!

    If you have preliminary questions about the XBox 360, you can find it on their forums [microsoft.com].

    • Re:XNA & Your Rights (Score:5, Informative)

      by andrew_j_w (630799) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:32AM (#15901815) Homepage
      The BBC article about this quotes Microsoft executive Peter Moore as saying:
      Microsoft would regulate the content for appropriateness and intellectual property issues, but users would own their work, Mr Moore said.
      It definitely looks like 1 is not the case, and given that he also says "I'd love to send a royalty cheque to a kid" 3 could well be it.

      Andrew
  • I have a few gimmick games that I'd like to release for a console, like MMOPONG, or a MMO Castle Builder.
  • indie developers and students

    They're kidding, right? $99 to develop a game that only a handful of people might play, and as a student having no income. You could get a job though to pay the fee, but when would you have time to code? And what happens if you develop the next Geometry Wars? Do you own the rights to have it published or will Microsoft just pay you royalties (that probably wouldn't make you back your $99 either).

    Here's a suggestion, set up a page on My Space with a link to, say, a File Planet fo
    • $100 a year does seem a little steep for this service at first glance, and correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it cost big bucks (like hundreds of thousands of dollars) for professional studios to get a liscence to develop games for consoles? The advantage for them is that their games are guaranteed to get published, but if this service allows students and independant developers to get their games out there in the Xbox 360 commmunity and if these developers are allowed to keep the rights to their products

  • How fun! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nukeade (583009) <serpent11@@@hotmail...com> on Monday August 14 2006, @07:36AM (#15901827) Homepage
    What a great educational tool! What got me into programming was a kid was the fact that I could make games very similar in quality to my Atari games on our old 386. I wonder if they'll offer an API simple enough for beginners to pick up.

    ~Ben
  • Reminds me of things like HURG: http://www.nonowt.com/magfold/revsfol/hurg.html [nonowt.com]
    That was good fun in the day, would get a simple game going without much programming. Although I mostly found programming more fun than playing....

  • Let me get this straight (Score:3, Funny)

    by mrjb (547783) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:45AM (#15901861)
    Instead of paying additional XBOX game developers a salary, MS is going to ask XBOX developers to pay *them*?
    Brilliant. I'm going to start a company right away, and I'll make sure to hire lots of developers to pay me.

  • Who says Slashdot always bashes Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by John Nowak (872479) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:55AM (#15901903)
    The comments in this thread show that, when MS does something good, Slashdot (with the exception of a few idiots) heaps on the praise.

  • Lets take bets... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Winterblink (575267) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:17AM (#15902025) Homepage
    ... on how long it will take someone to make a program that wrecks 360s.

  • Painful distribution.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by james_bray (188143) * on Monday August 14 2006, @08:55AM (#15902259) Homepage
    From the XNA FAQ:

    Q: How exactly can I share my 360 game to other 360 users? Will my game only be available to people with the XNA "Creators Club" subscription? Will it be available to all 360 users that have an Xbox Live account?
    A: There is currently no supported way to share binaries on the Xbox 360. Currently, there are four requirements that must be met in order to share a game targeting Xbox 360 which is developed with XNA Game Studio Express.

          1. The individual you are planning to share the game with must be logged in to Xbox Live and have an active subscription to the XNA Creators Club
          2. The receiving user must have downloaded the XNA Framework runtime environment for the Xbox 360
          3. The receiving user must have XNA Game Studio Express installed on their own development PC
          4. The game project, including all source and content assets, must be shared with the receiving user. The receiving user then compiles and deploys the game to their Xbox 360.

    Doesnt exactly sound like a barrel of laughs to distribute to friends etc...

  • Bold Move (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blueZhift (652272) on Monday August 14 2006, @09:35AM (#15902520) Homepage Journal
    With apologies to Ford, Microsoft is making a pretty bold move by essentially embracing the homebrew community. Some may not want to pay the $99 bucks to be able to share their games, but this sure beats the heck out of the constant arms race that is usually waged between console makers and people want to run homebrew or pirated software. One could also argue though, that this is a desperate move by Microsoft to spur more Xbox 360 development. But given that Microsoft on the whole has always been developer friendly and makes some of the best development tools in the business (at least for Microsoft platforms), I suspect that this was always a part of their plan. For me personally, this is a dream come true! I've always wanted the chance to write something for a console, but the price in money, for professional kits, or effort, for the homebrew console scene, has been too great. I've twiddled a bit on the PC, but consoles are where the real action is right now.

  • you haters are incredible. this is GREAT news. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PeeweeJD (623974) on Monday August 14 2006, @12:15PM (#15903893) Homepage
    why all the hate?

    did you guys say "oh great now we can have shitty mods" when the iD guys gave access to the WAD files?

    How about when Valve let people have access to the half-life engine? Isn't counterstrike still the most played online game? I'm willing to bet that a serious portion of the half life cds have been sold just to play counterstrick.

    What happened to the guys who made the Desert Combat mod for BF1942? Oh yeah, they got hired by the company and improved the game.

    Look at the success of Xbox Live Arcade. You have a plethora of PC game developers making games and selling them on the Xbox system. These are all guys who could never make console games in the past.

    MS made a bunch of tools to help developers make their PC games work on 360 and vice versa.

    So now MS wants to let even more people in, and you guys bitch about it? Why because you have to pay $99? or because some kid will make a donkey kong clone with steve jobs and bill gates? or because you have to have a 360?

    I'm willing to bet that some kick ass games come out as a result of this. Maybe some kid gets hired by a company and makes a truly kick ass game like Geometry Wars. Maybe some game comes out and gets noticed and picked up for Arcade. Who knows.

    If you dont want to do it, keep the $99 in your pocket. But only good stuff can come out of this.

    • Re:Why a subscription fee? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Churla (936633) on Monday August 14 2006, @07:13AM (#15901750)
      Since Microsoft won't be getting a cut of the games in question, and developer goodwill isn't exactly something they've had trouble getting behind the 360, what exactly would they get from just opening up the development platform?

      I believe they were charing significantly more for the full scale developers kit/package which companies like EA Sports and such buy into. This makes a "tinkering/homebrew" entry point into that arena for what is only the cost of a couple games.

    • Re:Why a subscription fee? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by macrom (537566) <macrom75@hotmail.com> on Monday August 14 2006, @08:16AM (#15902021) Homepage
      Companies tend to have these low-cost barriers to entry simply to keep every random person with a game idea from throwing stuff onto their development site. In addition, if it's free, one is more likely to sign up, piddle around and then never create anything. At least with a small entry fee there is a slight financial incentive for you to actually go through with creating and deploying something. To me, $99 is nothing, but it seems like this is targeted at younger kids in their late teens/early twenties. Depending on your family's financial background, $99 is a lot of money to a student with little to no income stream and will ensure that you at least have a vested interest in their program.

      Weight Watchers (the only example I can think of right now) has the same principle. They charge you $10-12 a week for their program whether you attend or not. They don't really do anything but weigh you and give you some rah-rah speeches to keep you motivated. The financial cost is there because, psychologically, people who have a vested financial interest in something tend to follow through with it more often and more completely.

      • LOL (Score:3, Insightful)

        by james_bray (188143) *
        > The financial cost is there because, psychologically, people who have a vested financial interest in something tend to follow through with it more often and more completely.

        Haha. Nonsense. The financial cost is there because they want to make money of desperate fat people!

      • Re:Why a subscription fee? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by twistedsymphony (956982) on Monday August 14 2006, @08:11AM (#15901991) Homepage
        Or maybe it's to help recoup their losses on the 360 sales, while XP is profitable already.
        If I had to pick one reason, that would be my guess... homebrew software on the Xbox 1 was pretty popular, we've been reading all sorts of articles about Bill Gates wanting to "engage" those people. Also the argument against the use of modchips for homebrew is that it breaks Microsoft's profit model where they loose money on the hardware and recoup it on the software and accessories. Obviously people useing free homebrew instead of buying official MS licensed games is only helping MS loose more money.

        By charging a subscription fee you can have your cake and eat it too. Garage developers can make AND RUN their homebrew software for a fairly low cost $100 really isn't that much, and the subscription fee lets MS allow that kind of development without breaking their profit model, essentially making up the money they're "loosing" by not selling you games.

        while it might be a bit more expensive then chipping your console a lot of people will opt for the legal route if available. Not to mention I can see a whole lot of non-developers signing up just to run the homebrew stuff made by the real developers. I'll tell you what, if they make an XBMC360 and it's availble on this thing, I'll pay the $100 a year to run that and other software, weather I'm developing my own software or not. I would imagine there will be a lot of other people in the same boat. MS basically found a way to allow homebrew software and turn a profit at the same time... crafty buggers.

      • In comments made to Japanese game website Impress Watch, and translated by GameSetWatch contributor Shou Suzuki, Kawanishi noted: "Because we have plans for having Linux on board [the PS3], we also recognize Linux programming activities... Other than game studios tied to official developer licenses, we'd like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3."

        It seems that Sony is happy to let basic application and game construction take place without access to the extremely sophistica

    • Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by p0tat03 (985078) on Monday August 14 2006, @10:18AM (#15902917)

      One of the consequences of FOSS is that now everyone wants everything for free. God forbid you pay for a library! What's with the sense of entitlement here?

      MS has a brand image to keep with the Xbox. To allow unfettered distribution of homebrew is a disaster. Remember that there are certain types of content that MS would rather keep off Xboxes, even if it wasn't authorized or endorsed by MS. Adult games, games featuring direct explicit illegalities... knowing the internet and YouTube, we have an immense ability to create content that the Xbox brand does NOT want to be associated with. There is absolutely nothing wrong with MS wanting control of distribution, if only for this purpose alone.

      So the idea will be to put a crutch on homebrew distribution, so that MS can pick the cream of the crop for official endorsement, and probably un-handicap the game for full XBLA distribution, free or otherwise. This will allow you and your buddies to have fun throwing pr0n and other shenanigans on the Xbox360, but disallow you from doing any real damage through mass distribution.

      And what's with the "XP only" game development? It's the .NET Framework for cryin' out loud. *AND* it's Managed DirectX! This concerns Linux/UNIX zealots none. We're not talking about a C++ library for OpenGL here, this thing simply *cannot* run in 'nix. The Xbox360 runs DX only, and one of the concepts here is getting rid of complex C++ and throwing in simpler C#, none of these quite fit with 'nix eh (Mono doesn't count)?

      Do you seriously think MS is intending on sucking $100/year out of every developer? Are you seriously believing that MS intends the subscription fee to be a profitable industry? There won't be enough devs out there for this to be anything but a drop in the bucket to MS. I suspect the fee is more of a barrier to entry requirement to keep your everyday kids out and encourage some serious development - without setting the price as high as to keep interested (and qualified) parties out.

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