Mircosoft are making an XBox IDE for $99 / year

[Samson]

I just say this. Basically Micro$oft is making a consumer level development platform available for the XBox. In the past it was next to imposible to release a game without a very rigorous approval from microsoft. This massivly reduces the number of titles produced. I belive this was intensional, to somewhat support software titles so they could get a significant share of the market with most games.

I think this COULD be great news. I think the games market is suffering a derth in new ideas as the vast majority of games take the safe option of reusing old ideas so as to avoid any really low sales. If people can make concept games that become popular, perhaps that sort of thinking could spread up the industry.

I am a little worried that when they say "Mr Moore said the games users would be able to make would be rudimentary" he means the IDE will be purposely ahmstringed to prevent people making competative games. I hope it is just that they do not include the higher level libraries (mostly graphics) that make modern games look so slick, but this may free the proccesing power to provide a very fast and smooth minimal environment for new ideas to flurish.

Another worry is when they say "Microsoft would regulate the content for appropriateness and intellectual property issues". Presumably they will keep the right to veto any game they feel threatened by. This could stifle the producers.

I wonder if it will be possible to GPL code produced for this platform? I expect you can, you can produce GPL software that requires Visual Studio.

An interesting point is do you think you would be willing to play a game that had the graphics of a 10 year old game, if it had a good concept and good gameplay?

The whole articale is below;

Spoiler :

Xbox outlines 'YouTube for games'

Microsoft is to offer a consumer version of professional tools used to develop videogames for the Xbox 360.

The software will let non-professionals develop titles and then share them via the Xbox Live online service.

Microsoft executive Peter Moore said: "It's our first step of creating a YouTube for videogames."

The program will seek to complement a trend that has seen videogames becoming more like film blockbusters, costing up to £20m to produce.

Users will need a PC running Windows XP - or Vista in the future - to operate the tools program, called XNA Game Studio Express.

The tools will be available in trial form from 20 August and there is a $99 (£55) annual subscription.

David Amor, creative director at Relentless, developers of Buzz, praised the move by Microsoft.

"Anything that lets a wider set of people have the ability to create software is a good thing.

"The best games are about ideas, not necessarily about technical skills."

Mr Amor said the games market was broad enough to support epic, expensive titles and more modest, home-produced games.

He said: "If it enables people to put ideas into practice then it could also be a good gateway into the professional industry."

The boom in videogame development in the UK and US in the 1980s was attributed to teenagers making games on home machines such as the Spectrum, TRS-80 and Commodore 64.

Mr Amor said that experience of developing DIY games on powerful games consoles could help produce a new generation of talent.

Mr Moore said the consumer XNA program was basic compared to the pro tools, which cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Some basic program skills were still going to be needed for the consumer version if successful titles were to be developed, he said.

Mr Moore said the games users would be able to make would be rudimentary.

He said future plans may include additional software packs that consumers could buy to tweak their games.

Microsoft would regulate the content for appropriateness and intellectual property issues, but users would own their work, he said.

"I'd love to send a royalty cheque to a kid," he added.

YouTube has become an enormously popular website for video clips - many of which are filmed by users themselves.

Last month YouTube reported that users watched more than 100 million videos per day.

Microsoft said more than 10 US universities, including the University of Southern California and Southern Methodist University, will include XNA Game Studio Express and Xbox 360 development in their curriculum.

User-generated content is not new; it thrives within PC gaming where gamers develop mods of popular games and add content to existing titles.

But producing games for consoles has traditionally been almost impossible because the hardware platform is closed.

Chris Lee, commercial director of FreeStyleGames, said he welcomed the opportunity the tools would give budding game developers.

But he warned that producing DIY titles was far removed from the reality of making professional games.

"I'm concerned that people will think that getting into the games industry is simply a matter of making a few home titles and then working for a professional company."

But Mr Lee agreed that there could be room in the marketplace for professional high-end games and DIY titles.

 

[marioh]

Why would a game developer make a game using hamstrung tools for the X-Box when he could make a full fledged game for the PC ?
No serious software developer is going to waste their time with this. At most, beginning and recreational programmers. And even those programmers would be kind of stupid to waste their time using limited tools when they could make games in various other programming languages for the PC.

And Microsoft is going to charge for this "service" ?!?! This idea is laughable at best, and will fall flat on it's face.

 

[Samson]

These tools MAY not be hamstrung, just not including the full featured rendering libraries and such like you get with the full package.

The reasons I can think of are;

You have a large market of people with XBoxes, who at the moment have nothing to play on them but games costing very large ammounts of money. You do not have competion of many other games available free or for a couple of dollars or something. If you could get 1 in a hundred XBox users to buy a game for $2 you would have a lot more money than if you worked for EA for a year.

It sounds to me like the XBox 360 could be a very interesting platform to develop on. It is something like 8 proccesors that can each be dedicated to graphics, CPU type functions, sounds, whatever. That is not something you can do on any other platform that I am aware of.

 

[marioh]

These tools MAY not be hamstrung, just not including the full featured rendering libraries and such like you get with the full package.

The reasons I can think of are;

You have a large market of people with XBoxes, who at the moment have nothing to play on them but games costing very large ammounts of money. You do not have competion of many other games available free or for a couple of dollars or something. If you could get 1 in a hundred XBox users to buy a game for $2 you would have a lot more money than if you worked for EA for a year.

It sounds to me like the XBox 360 could be a very interesting platform to develop on. It is something like 8 proccesors that can each be dedicated to graphics, CPU type functions, sounds, whatever. That is not something you can do on any other platform that I am aware of.

What's the use of 8 processors or an advanced graphics card if you can't use either of the features to the fullest ?
It's easier, and doesn't cost a subscription fee, to just develop games for the PC, and then distribute the game over the Internet. There's plenty of software developers who do that already, and are successful doing so. One of my favorite games, Out of the Park Baseball, is like this, and I've had no problems in giving that programmer my money for an excellent baseball simulator.


edit: If what Microsoft was doing was free, it wouldn't be such a bad idea. But, considering they're looking to make money off of this, I'm just pointing out that programmers can do a better job, at less cost, developing games for the PC instead.

 

[Elta]

To me it is a Fantastic Idea ...will it work? well thatremains to be seen but top tier playstation (1) GFX in 10 years would be a god send for stuff like this - Who knows it could spawn a whole industry of "game creation packages"

 

[Samson]

What's the use of 8 processors or an advanced graphics card if you can't use either of the features to the fullest ?
It's easier, and doesn't cost a subscription fee, to just develop games for the PC, and then distribute the game over the Internet.

But what do you get for free? Sure you can get GCC and go hacking games, but can you get a fully game ready rendering library, or phisics library for free for the PC? If it is only this sort of functionallity that is missing then I do think it is likely to be comarable.

Is it easier? Have you every developed anything graphical for the PC? It is a nightmare with the wide variety of graphics cards and drivers out there. Some things are definatly easier on a console.

There's plenty of software developers who do that already, and are successful doing so. One of my favorite games, Out of the Park Baseball, is like this, and I've had no problems in giving that programmer my money for an excellent baseball simulator.

There are also lots of people who develop for the XBox (if only people working for big compaies), and SOME make a lot of money. Why do they do it? It is because there is a big market out there of people who are willing to spend money. I suspect that if you can make a game that is fun to play for very little money you may get a lot of people buying it.

edit: If what Microsoft was doing was free, it wouldn't be such a bad idea. But, considering they're looking to make money off of this, I'm just pointing out that programmers can do a better job, at less cost, developing games for the PC instead.

I am not convinced of this, if your aim is to get the maximum number of people to give you $2 for your bit of code.

Perhaps I am too fondly remembering the days of the spectrum 48k when lots of people could get a fun and unique game running in not many months and sell it for a couple of pounds. These days when you have to spend what I spend on a car for a game it just seems over the top. I do not need fancy graphics, I just want somethign that entertains.

 

[croxis]

Yes there ARE free physics, graphics, netcode, audio libraries out there. OGRE, Crystal Space. Some cost $100 or less and its a lifetime licence such as Torque. (yes yes leave quality out of this, these are just examples and reference). With DirectX, OpenGL, OpenAL developing for different cards isn't difficult -- especally for simple-esk games which is the target for this program.

I give props to microsoft for attempting something new, but I question the effectiveness.