M$ SEZ: Anyone Can Create X360 Games!

[GrandAmChandler]

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/08/14/xbox/index.php

Or just read here:

A new game development platform from Microsoft allows anyone to create games for its Xbox 360 console, the company said on Monday.

Typically, console games are designed by large studios that must pay high prices to buy development kits in order to write games for consoles. Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio Express is a new development kit, to be released in beta form in August, that will be available for free to anyone using a Windows XP PC. The kit is designed for game developer novices as well as studios, Microsoft said.

Users will have the option of joining a developers group for US$99 per year in which they can share and test their games with other designers and access information that could help them speed up the development process.

More than ten universities, including the University of Southern California, Georgia Tech College of Computing and Southern Methodist University Guildhall, will include the new platform in the curricula of their game development schools, according to Microsoft.

The software giant has also worked with games software development tool companies to ensure that their tools can be used within the new platform. Autodesk, a provider of 3-D authoring software, and GarageGames, a maker of games development software, both said that their technologies can be ported to the XNA Game Studio Express platform.

The XNA Game Studio Express development environment is based on Visual Studio Express and .NET, and allows developers to create games simultaneously for Xbox 360 and Windows XP.

Microsoft expects the final non-beta version of the development platform to become available by the end of the year. Another version of XNA Game Studio Express designed for professional game developers will become available in early 2007, the company said.

The Xbox 360 is the second version of the Xbox console, which started selling late last year.


So who is gonna create a new XBLA game that we can all play? Is it YOU!?

-GAC

[jajaja]

I just read this 5 min another place hehe :) Really cool stuff! (altho i dont own a 360).

[jcalder8]

Although I don't make games I think that this is an awesome idea. You get to pay $99 to create a game for the 360 which they will then turn around and sell to other people. I also think its a great way to help get more games on the system for free.

[pacmanhat]

Although I don't make games I think that this is an awesome idea. You get to pay $99 to create a game for the 360 which they will then turn around and sell to other people. I also think its a great way to help get more games on the system for free.

This isn't the case.

As much as Microsoft would love to have you believe otherwise, not 'anyone' will be able to release something for the 360. Any game that gets made will have to be certified by Microsoft, and the licensing fees to have a game resold and so forth are a whole other ballgame. The creation software and hardware is really impressive, but it isn't and never will be as simple and easy as they're saying it is.

[Damaniel]

Although I don't make games I think that this is an awesome idea. You get to pay $99 to create a game for the 360 which they will then turn around and sell to other people. I also think its a great way to help get more games on the system for free.

This isn't the case.

As much as Microsoft would love to have you believe otherwise, not 'anyone' will be able to release something for the 360. Any game that gets made will have to be certified by Microsoft, and the licensing fees to have a game resold and so forth are a whole other ballgame. The creation software and hardware is really impressive, but it isn't and never will be as simple and easy as they're saying it is.

Yep, if you read the article on Gamasutra about this, you'll see that there are no plans to make user-created game content widely available. They hint that 'enhanced' versions of the best games *might* make it on to XBLA if they're successful, though I don't know how they'll gauge the success of a game that nobody else can play.

Nevertheless, I'll still be downloading and playing with this. If Microsoft does have a way for content developed with these tools to get noticed, and for the best to be put onto Live Arcade, that means more games to play, and a rare opportunity for indie developers to get official access to a non-PC platform.

[jajaja]

I doubt MS have made this "system" so everyone should be able to make big titles that are sold in stores. The way i understand it is that its only for fun and so called homebrew, which is free.

[nik]

Sounds like a great experience, and way to get your foot in the door if you're so inclined.

[Chadt74]

I'd probably pay $20 bucks for a disk of top 3-10 games (depending on size) made by independent developers or I'd pay a few bucks to download them.

I remember a few years back that with the PS1 black reading about a game called Dark or something where it was a FPS but your gun had a torch on it which worked as the only light in the game and thus you had limited sight. I thought that would be a really cool, easier to program, idea to build a game around.

If nothing else it might give MSoft some good ideas to improve their games.

[pacmanhat]

Although I don't make games I think that this is an awesome idea. You get to pay $99 to create a game for the 360 which they will then turn around and sell to other people. I also think its a great way to help get more games on the system for free.

This isn't the case.

As much as Microsoft would love to have you believe otherwise, not 'anyone' will be able to release something for the 360. Any game that gets made will have to be certified by Microsoft, and the licensing fees to have a game resold and so forth are a whole other ballgame. The creation software and hardware is really impressive, but it isn't and never will be as simple and easy as they're saying it is.

Yep, if you read the article on Gamasutra about this, you'll see that there are no plans to make user-created game content widely available. They hint that 'enhanced' versions of the best games *might* make it on to XBLA if they're successful, though I don't know how they'll gauge the success of a game that nobody else can play.

Nevertheless, I'll still be downloading and playing with this. If Microsoft does have a way for content developed with these tools to get noticed, and for the best to be put onto Live Arcade, that means more games to play, and a rare opportunity for indie developers to get official access to a non-PC platform.

Oh absolutely. I definitely plan on giving this a spin...if it's anything like the Torque Game Builders, it'll be a fantastic tool. Other people's programs CAN be used on other platforms, but both people need all of the same XNA stuff. It isn't the simplest way to go about things, but it allows for the possibility of something independent really catching on by word of mouth and the internet and such (think "Snakes on a Plane" in game form).

I wonder, though...if something like that happens, would Microsoft try to snag the rights to it? Would they be able to profit off of the success of someone else's work created in their architecture?

[exit]

If Microsoft is serious about this, then it's a big advantage for them, especially if they'll let people share their games through a sharing network. A contest for the top 5 games wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Of course there's probably some kind of evil M$ catch, but that's to be expected.

[Push Upstairs]

Interesting stuff.

\^_^/ for MS.


This is something Sony should have done with the PSP.

[PapaStu]

YAROZE!
YAROZE!!
YAROZE!!!

Now if they actually support it for more than 1 release cycle it'll be something interesting to get to play. Hopefully some good stuff (like Devil Dice did via the Japanese Yaroze system) will come out of this.

[FantasiaWHT]

Very interesting stuff! Nice to see a manufacturer encouraging this sort of thing.

[RetroYoungen]

YAROZE!
YAROZE!!
YAROZE!!!

Now if they actually support it for more than 1 release cycle it'll be something interesting to get to play. Hopefully some good stuff (like Devil Dice did via the Japanese Yaroze system) will come out of this.

EXACTLY what came into my head the second I started reading this. If they manage to really push it and get something created with it for the mass market, more power to 'em. If they don't drop it quickly and a few upstarts can make a gem or two, more power to 'em.

If they drop it too quickly, then... yeah. Yaroze.

I though Devil Dice was created by a European developer though... could be wrong, just have Euro stuck in my head for some reason.

[PapaStu]

YAROZE!
YAROZE!!
YAROZE!!!

Now if they actually support it for more than 1 release cycle it'll be something interesting to get to play. Hopefully some good stuff (like Devil Dice did via the Japanese Yaroze system) will come out of this.

EXACTLY what came into my head the second I started reading this. If they manage to really push it and get something created with it for the mass market, more power to 'em. If they don't drop it quickly and a few upstarts can make a gem or two, more power to 'em.

If they drop it too quickly, then... yeah. Yaroze.

I though Devil Dice was created by a European developer though... could be wrong, just have Euro stuck in my head for some reason.

Nope Japanese group as far as I remember. I know i've read about it other places but Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Dice) is the only place i'm seeing thats mentioning the Japanese and Yaroze development at the moment.

Though the Euro scene for the Yaroze was pretty damn impressive, so much so infact that in the Euro Offical PlayStation magazine demo discs they'd have Yaroze demos as part of the disc every month.

[slip81]

Sounds like a really cool idea.

I hoe MS does this right an allows people to share their games for free (maybe not over live, but some other P2P like system). Something tells me they will and if it gets enough support from the gamers it'll be a success.

It seems like one of those too cool to be true things, and that there should be a catch, it doesn't seem that way to me. IMO it seems MS is trying to do everything right and get the support of all games to ultimately wipe the floor with the competition and make themselves the king of videogame hill.

[j_factor]

I highly, highly doubt that you'll be able to play your game on any Xbox 360. Basically, you'll be able to make your game and play it yourself, and if you pay a hundred bucks you can upload it to someone else who paid the hundred bucks.

I think it's neat, but I don't see much happening with it. Very little ever came of those PS2 Linux kits that let people make games.

[coreycorey2000]

This gives me reason to finally purchase an Xbox. And to brush up on my C#. I think this is a great idea.

[Sothy]

Me and scooter are working on a game design.

Think the show M.A.S.H. but in the Deep Space Nine Star Trek Universe so Bashir wears hawaiin shirts and has an illegal moonshine synthehol still in the arboretum. Im thinking a Vulcan will play Major Burns.

Not sure how gameplay will work but its already a guranteed 80% with things like Captain Sisko saying "BULL COOKIES!"

Maybe mini games like the board game operation but you gotta find gall bladders and stuff in weird alien bodies.