Xbox 360 dev kits for amatuers

robinph

From next year you'll be able to write your own Xbox360 games which will presumably then get distributed via the arcade:

The Register

BBC news

GrumPy

Cool.

super_furry

Another smart move from Microsoft. Xbox Live Arcade really does offer the chance for games developers to try something different at a low cost and could really spear-head the way for some true innovation.

Vegeta

Ok I haven't read the links as I am at work but who tests the games and gives them a rating for violence and swearing etc.

Ciaran500

Its out this year BTW August 30th.

"Microsoft will ship a pre-release beta version of XNA Game Studio Express on 30 August. The software will be be free, and runs on Windows XP. There's a catch: to test code on an Xbox 360, users will have to cough up $99 a year to join Microsoft's XNA users group, an online forum that will provide documentation and a game-sharing facility to allow other users to test unfinished titles."

From the BBC article "Microsoft would regulate the content for appropriateness and intellectual property issues, but users would own their work, Mr Moore said."

Vegeta

Ciaran500 wrote:

Its out this year BTW August 30th.

From the BBC article "Microsoft would regulate the content for appropriateness and intellectual property issues, but users would own their work, Mr Moore said."

Thanks for that cos otherwise i just didn't see this getting off the ground. No one would release a game where you went around slaughtering kids and calling them cun*s while doing so, if everyone could download it without checking for the age of the user.

This brings up another question, will we ever see a game on live arcade which is rated for over 18s only. Can they even check user age. I suppose they could put in a disclaimer

That Guy 901

Thats a brilliant idea and gives small programmers a big chance.

But knowing the bigger companies will rip off the little guy and sell the game for millions after adding better graphic and whatnot.

LookingFor

Games won't be distributed via XBLA, at least not for the short term. You'll only be able to share you work with other people that are a part of this club, and you'll have to send them your code, your art/content etc. and they'll recompile the game on their side to play it.

They're talking about a YouTube-style service that would let everyone access this content, but they're saying it'll be up to 5 years down the road. So in some ways it looks like it'll be similar to PS2's Linux venture, in that you need to be a creator yourself to access other creators' content.

Lord Oz

Good idea but they're making it too complicated and expensive for homebrew. People can already play backups on the Xbox 360, why fight it?

Ciaran500

Lord Oz wrote:

Good idea but they're making it too complicated and expensive for homebrew. People can already play backups on the Xbox 360, why fight it?

€6.41 a month isn't expensive for tools and access to the XNA user group.

What do backups have to do with it?

projectmayhem

Lord Oz wrote:

Good idea but they're making it too complicated and expensive for homebrew. People can already play backups on the Xbox 360, why fight it?

well first off this has nothing to do with back-ups, it's a devkit so you can make your own games and most probably they'll have some backbone to XBL to distribute you little games

as for back-ups and fighting them. microsoft doesn't care about you playing your back-ups. microsoft cares about you downloading ISO's and playing games without paying

Ciaran500

LookingFor wrote:

They're talking about a YouTube-style service that would let everyone access this content, but they're saying it'll be up to 5 years down the road.

Where did you hear this?

"Because this is a blog and not the actual press announcement, I can talk about the big obvious hole in the plan. When we ship XNA Game Studio Express this fall, you will be able to share your final product with anyone on your windows machine that you want, but there is no support for sharing Xbox binaries other than sending your source around. We fully intend to fix this in the future, and if I have anything to do about it, it will be sooner than later. The more people that sign up for the subscription and start showing cool innovative content that everyone wants, the easier it will be to get this done." http://blogs.***n.com/xna/archive/2006/08/14/699637.aspx

EDIT: I assume the address is censored because its close to the name of those twats we can't mention. Its msdn if anyone is interested in the link.

mcgovern

Ciaran500 wrote:

Where did you hear this?

"Because this is a blog and not the actual press announcement, I can talk about the big obvious hole in the plan. When we ship XNA Game Studio Express this fall, you will be able to share your final product with anyone on your windows machine that you want, but there is no support for sharing Xbox binaries other than sending your source around. We fully intend to fix this in the future, and if I have anything to do about it, it will be sooner than later. The more people that sign up for the subscription and start showing cool innovative content that everyone wants, the easier it will be to get this done." http://blogs.***n.com/xna/archive/2006/08/14/699637.aspx

Mentioned slightly here and I'm sure I seen it else where also.

Smoggy

already have a game I want developed. Now just to find the time.

edit : Looks like I will have to wait , as the game I have in mind is via Live