XNA Studio Interview 26
GamingNexus writes "GamingNexus is running an interview with Chris Satchell from Microsoft on their upcoming XNA Studio developer suite for game developers. It talks about the differences between the XNA Studio and the upcoming version of Visual Studio 2005 (which it's based on) as well as how it will support all phases of the gaming development lifecycle (including artists and project managers."
marketing jackass (Score:2, Insightful)
XNA Studio will speed development time and decrease development costs by delivering an advanced build framework and a suite on integrated tools to solve common production challenges.
Our focus with XNA studio is to deliver the incredible productivity and collaboration services...
Re:marketing jackass (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:marketing jackass (Score:3, Insightful)
He said something to me once and it is the only thing a marketing guy has said to me about his profesion that i have ever agreed with , he said "We are a bunch of arseholes , profesionaly that is".Gave me a good laugh
Re:marketing jackass (Score:4, Interesting)
Having said that, I'm definitely going to give him some shit about that interview, because I was drowning in all the buzzwords...
Re:marketing jackass (Score:3, Interesting)
So... is this is a good thing or a bad thing?
Re:marketing jackass (Score:2, Insightful)
I certainly agree with the sentiment, but I also think it goes too far too often. I've seen my friend get caught up in the buzzwords, and I'm
Re:marketing jackass (Score:1)
Re:marketing jackass (Score:2)
XNA Studio will speed development time and decrease development costs by delivering an advanced build framework and a suite on integrated tools to solve common production challenges.
Sounds fine to me. XNA has a toolset that allows you to configure/optimize projects, with tools thrown in tha address problems that frequently come up in p
Re:marketing jackass (Score:1)
I hate interviewers who ask the questions that the person who is being interviewed wants to answer.
GamingNexus: What are some of the praises from developers already using XNA? What are some of the negatives?
Chris Satchell: We continually get great feedback from developers... Developer love PIX... developers really appreciated... continually get feedback on how easy it is...
Where were the negatives? Gee whiz, he didn't seem to answer that part of the question. Wonder why.
Is this an _interview_? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is this an _interview_? (Score:1)
Part of MSDN (Score:2)
Re:Part of MSDN (Score:4, Interesting)
What that means is that I am assuming that there will be a MSDN Universal Game Developer license that will include XNA Studio but the MSDN Universal Software Architect will probably not.
I can dig up a link of you really want me to that provides evidence towards their different levels.
suxx0rs (Score:2)
Yes, I wrote about the changes they seem to be making to MSDN subscriptions in this JE [slashdot.org].
It really ticks me off the the MSDN Universal subscription was described as including all the latest and greatest developer tools and now that they are coming out with some really great tools, they are going to stop including them.
Re:suxx0rs (Score:2)
bmp editing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:bmp editing (Score:2, Interesting)
I think one of their main features will be a UI interface to bin2h :)
On the other hand, there is a couple of ways they can innovate, or just copy all the work done by previous companies.
For example, Metroworks Studio (i think) for the Playstation, gameboy, gba (and lots of other consoles/handhelds) is probably the kinda thing their going for. It's an IDE with a load of stuff like a fairly decent sprite editor, encoders and tools for native formats to the target (which in microsofts case would be .x, and
Asset management (Score:5, Interesting)
As a programmer, one of the difficulties I've regularly faced is finding the art resources I need to complete my tasks. At some point, the art and programming schedules split, and each group ends up shuffling scheduled tasks in order to deal with unforeseen problems, last minute demos and all the usual fun. What frequently happens when I get a task requiring art assets, is that I need start running around the building on the asset chase:
a) Find the lead programmer/programming manager to find where the assets should be.
b) If the asset location is not known, find the lead artist/art manager and see if they know where the asset is, if it's been completed yet according to the art schedule, and which artist is responsible for creating that asset.
c) Find the artist responsible to find where the asset is located, or the current status if they're still working on it.
It seems to me that there is potential for a centralised schedule and asset tracking system, so that I can immediately check for a programming task what resources (art, audio and/or design) that task depends on, who is scheduled to create those resources and the current status. This works both ways, too - an artist may be waiting for a particular software component to be written before they can see how a bitmap or mesh looks using that component. I've regularly heard complaints along the lines of "I started doing x two months ago, but I needed y to finish; no-one told me y was completed five weeks ago".
I'm interested to see if this is the sort of thing that XNA studio will provide, or if there's still a niche open. Or does anyone have a similar system already in use?
Re:Asset management (Score:3, Interesting)
I think one of the main reasons it was turned down was the price tag. The initial costs to shift the studio over to use Alienbrain wer
More Windows Lockin (Score:2, Insightful)
Features? (Score:1)