Originally Posted by
pacmanhat
Originally Posted by
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.
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.