14-08-2006, 11:56 PM
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/08/14/micros...xna-tools/
Microsoft spoke with us on the phone last week concerning the events going on at their Gamefest event happening in Seattle today and tomorrow. Two and a half years ago they unveiled the XNA platform at the Game Developer's Conference -- which promised to ameliorate the increasing burden placed professional game developers -- and today they've announced XNA Game Studio Express -- a free variant of XNA for hobbyists to develop games on both the Windows and, for a fee, Xbox 360 platforms. A beta will be available August 30th as a free download for Windows XP development, while Xbox 360 functionality will be added into the final version, expected to be available this holiday for a $99 annual subscription.
The product aims to address three unique challenges Microsoft sees facing the games industry: keeping people in the industry (crunch mode sucks), building up the pipeline of new entrants coming into the industry (they'll work with universities), and helping grow the audience to match industry growth (new ideas mean new gamers).
This enthusiast offering will be followed next spring with a professional offering, allowing small studios to sell the games they're developing. While they have no price point fixed just yet, they did tell us they "are looking at a price point of absolutely under $1000," a fair share cheaper than existing devkits.
The $99 subscription grants you access to the (tentatively titled) "creator's club," which will also offer downloadable sample games to help would be game developers get started. Unfortunately, these sample games will not be available outside of the subscription service to entice curious coders to participate, but they are a launching point for the most exciting, innovative, and (understandably) long-term goal of this project. A community-powered Xbox Live Arcade gaming space. Scott Henson, Director of the Game Development Group at Microsoft, told us:
"In the future -- we don't have a specific time frame -- we envision investing in the infrastructure to create a friction-free distribution environment very similar to what you see with YouTube. You've got these really cheap accessible tools, now wouldn't it be really cool if you had a way to share this stuff with people online, potentially sell it in time to people online, and what if we, Microsoft, created the platform and the distribution mechanism as a part of the Xbox Live service so you could do that. So our vision and our ambition is to actually create a community-powered arcade."
As a result, they imagine a "cultural phenomenon" similar to YouTube where would be game designers upload their creations and participate in an online community with the meritocratic notion that better games will inevitably rise to the top. With the announcement that 10 universities will be integrating XNA Game Studio Express into their curriculum, we imagine a great deal of content on just such a future service.
Just as Xbox Live debuted with the original Xbox, but took the concentrated focus of the 360 to fully exploit it, we wonder how long it will be until we as gamers really start to reap the benefits of these ambitious plans, either in the form of a community-powered arcade or innovative indie games. Continue reading the entire press release, pasted below, for all the details.
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Sounds really interesting, I wonder how much it will allow you to do.
Microsoft spoke with us on the phone last week concerning the events going on at their Gamefest event happening in Seattle today and tomorrow. Two and a half years ago they unveiled the XNA platform at the Game Developer's Conference -- which promised to ameliorate the increasing burden placed professional game developers -- and today they've announced XNA Game Studio Express -- a free variant of XNA for hobbyists to develop games on both the Windows and, for a fee, Xbox 360 platforms. A beta will be available August 30th as a free download for Windows XP development, while Xbox 360 functionality will be added into the final version, expected to be available this holiday for a $99 annual subscription.
The product aims to address three unique challenges Microsoft sees facing the games industry: keeping people in the industry (crunch mode sucks), building up the pipeline of new entrants coming into the industry (they'll work with universities), and helping grow the audience to match industry growth (new ideas mean new gamers).
This enthusiast offering will be followed next spring with a professional offering, allowing small studios to sell the games they're developing. While they have no price point fixed just yet, they did tell us they "are looking at a price point of absolutely under $1000," a fair share cheaper than existing devkits.
The $99 subscription grants you access to the (tentatively titled) "creator's club," which will also offer downloadable sample games to help would be game developers get started. Unfortunately, these sample games will not be available outside of the subscription service to entice curious coders to participate, but they are a launching point for the most exciting, innovative, and (understandably) long-term goal of this project. A community-powered Xbox Live Arcade gaming space. Scott Henson, Director of the Game Development Group at Microsoft, told us:
"In the future -- we don't have a specific time frame -- we envision investing in the infrastructure to create a friction-free distribution environment very similar to what you see with YouTube. You've got these really cheap accessible tools, now wouldn't it be really cool if you had a way to share this stuff with people online, potentially sell it in time to people online, and what if we, Microsoft, created the platform and the distribution mechanism as a part of the Xbox Live service so you could do that. So our vision and our ambition is to actually create a community-powered arcade."
As a result, they imagine a "cultural phenomenon" similar to YouTube where would be game designers upload their creations and participate in an online community with the meritocratic notion that better games will inevitably rise to the top. With the announcement that 10 universities will be integrating XNA Game Studio Express into their curriculum, we imagine a great deal of content on just such a future service.
Just as Xbox Live debuted with the original Xbox, but took the concentrated focus of the 360 to fully exploit it, we wonder how long it will be until we as gamers really start to reap the benefits of these ambitious plans, either in the form of a community-powered arcade or innovative indie games. Continue reading the entire press release, pasted below, for all the details.
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Sounds really interesting, I wonder how much it will allow you to do.
"An eye for an eye makes whole world blind" - Gandhi
![[Image: 1142118JykvC.png]](http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud.net:8080/sig.php/1142118JykvC.png)
Just replace the Nintendo24 Connect with Xbox Live and Virtual Console with Xbox Live Marketplace and Wii with Xbox360 and ta-da! It's the exact same thing lol![[Image: HUmar_banner_dial.gif]](http://www.lee-yoshi.co.uk/images/signatures/HUmar_banner_dial.gif)