AT&T Tech Support 360August 13, 2006 9:00 PM PDT
Play your own Xbox game
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The company plans to show off on Monday a new set of developer tools that will let college students, hobbyists and others create their own games for the Xbox 360 console, for a Windows PC or both.
Dubbed XNA Game Studio Express, the free software is expected to be available in beta form by the end of the month, with a final product available sometime this holiday season.
"The tools we are talking about make it way easier to make games than it is today," said Scott Henson, director for platform strategy for Microsoft's game developer group. Microsoft will demonstrate the new software at Gamefest, a company-run show for game developers that takes place in Seattle this week.
The approach is similar to one Microsoft has taken with software development in general, selling its Visual Studio tools to professional programmers while making a more limited "express" version free to hobbyists.
Microsoft released the first version of its XNA tools for professional developers in March 2005, ahead of the Xbox 360's release the following November.
With the hobbyist release, the software giant is hoping to lay the groundwork for what one day will be a thriving network of enthusiasts developing for one another, something akin to a YouTube for games. The company, however, is pretty far from that goal.
In the first incarnation, games developed using the free tools will be available only to like-minded hobbyists, not the Xbox community as a whole. Those who want to develop games will have to pay a $99 fee to be part of a "Creators' Club," a name that is likely to change. Games developed using XNA Game Studio Express will be playable only by others who are part of the club.
Next spring, Microsoft hopes to have a broader set of tools that will allow for games to be created that can then be sold online through Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. Microsoft will still control which games get published, and it'll get a cut of the revenue.
Down the road, probably three to five years from now, Microsoft hopes to have an open approach, where anyone can publish games, and community response helps separate the hits from the flops.
That would mark a major shift in the gaming world. While people have long been able to create their own PC software, console game titles have historically been created by a far more limited set of developers.
Everyone says they could do better if only they had a chance, says Envisioneering analyst Richard Doherty. Now gamers can match their skills with the pros, he said. "They may not have a popular game, but they can at least try it."
Plus, in creating a new outlet for enthusiasts, Microsoft is looking for one more way of winning the hearts and minds of the hard-core gamer set ahead of the release of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii, both due later this year.
Sony tried something somewhat similar with the original PlayStation, releasing in limited quantities a $750 add-on kit called the Net Yaroze that let people write their own games.
Part of the impetus for expanding the pool of developers is the growing expense of making major video games. Many games take 18 to 36 months to develop Henson said, meaning big game companies only want to back sure hits. "Future titles look like existing titles," he said. "There's not a lot of branching off and taking risks."
A particular target of the new program is colleges, with Microsoft having signed up 10 universities to use the new software as part of their curricula, some as early as this fall.
Doherty said Microsoft is the biggest beneficiary of the program as the effort both helps tie gamers to the Xbox and potentially leads to new ideas.
"I think some new talent is going to come out of it," Doherty said. "I'm not saying it's going to be 'American Idol.'"
See more CNET content tagged:
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With XNA as the engine, the game remains MS' property.
Homebrew is here to stay. Companies like Gamepark have based their entire business model. MS realized this when XBox Live Arcade started pulling in more cash for tiny games made by small developers than the $60 disappointments by large developers.
Knowing Sony, if they did make a hobbiest devkit, it will be $999 and only other people who paid that $999 will be able to play your games and you won't be able to burn them to a disc to distribute.
If all goes well, M$ would need an iTMS analog for computer games, where indies would be able to sell their games.
Of course if M$ wouldn't screw up as it did with digital music.
- Mike
According to Microsoft vice president Peter Moore, the XNA Game Studio Express, will let anyone with the desire, create their own video games and then share them on Microsoft's Xbox Live online game service.
Let?s recap, shall we?
Pay $99 for a cool video game programming toolkit. Good idea if you?re so inclined.
Develop your great ideas for video games and possibly launch a lucrative career as a video game programmer. Good idea if you?re so inclined.
Share said designs & hard work with other Xbox live gamers. Maybe a dumb idea, as someone may steal your idea & pawn it off as their own.
Share said designs & hard work on a Microsoft sponsored web site, which they no doubt will be perusing so they can ?innovate?. A company known for stealing ideas & crushing competitors with anti-competitive tactics. An EXTREMELY dumb idea.
Makes sense if you?re Microsoft though. Why pay programmers for the next great idea in gaming, when you might be able to get it for free. Hopefully the people who use this product won?t be blinded by the Microsoft PR machine. If their smart enough & talented enough to design video games, they should be able to blow away the smoke screen.
Just say NO, to Microsoft.
I?m Guessing
http://imguessingblog.blogspot.com
imguessingblog@gmail.com
- It was only a matter of time...
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by pcpimpster
August 14, 2006 12:26 PM PDT
- It was only a matter of time!
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Reply to this comment
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See all 26 Comments >>before MS took their best skill and flipped it on the gaming industry with a solid console to back it up.
Developer Tools (in case you were wondering)!
I'm a db/business/web/bunch of other sh*t developer (.NET, check it out sometime), all because M$ gave me the tools to do it on a decent (if setup properly, secure) platform and with a great bang to bullets set of developer tools.
Tiny game developers will now ?hopefully? gain access to all the guns the big boys use when developing good games. This will in fact create some good games.
I see some comments regarding open source.. m$?
This isn?t open source, so shutup!!!
But dev tools and getting programmers to back those tools, and r*tard_ing them down so the idiot who wants to, can use them?
You get my point.
Open Source vs. Billion Dollar Dev Tools.
That?s really where the fight is going on.