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Microsoft To Enable User-Created Xbox 360 Games
Posted by
samzenpus
on Mon Aug 14, 2006 08:05 AM
from the play-nice dept.
from the play-nice dept.
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)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
My game will be called... (Score:5, Funny)
.... "Linux kernel"
Re:My game will be called... (Score:5, Funny)
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
Parent
Re:My game will be called... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:My game will be called... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:My game will be called... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:My game will be called... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Killer Feature (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Parent
Re:Killer Feature (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Fragmenting the community. (Score:3, Interesting)
E.g. Alien Swarm has about 4 decent servers, and a community of 100 players.
Well color me impressed... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Well color me impressed... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Developers, Developers, Developers (Score:5, Funny)
XNA & Your Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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
Parent
Who says Slashdot always bashes Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets take bets... (Score:4, Funny)
Painful distribution.... (Score:5, Informative)
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...
you haters are incredible. this is GREAT news. (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Parent
Re:Why a subscription fee? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Why a subscription fee? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Microsoft still doesn't get it... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent