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on: August 14, 2006, 02:58:37 AM

The Decision That Levels The Playing Field

See, what just happened is Microsoft slapped Team Kaz and Team Miyamoto right in the forehead. I don't even know where to begin, so I'll copy and paste the best part of the Gamasutra article.

Talking on the eve of its Gamefest event in Seattle, Microsoft has revealed XNA Game Studio Express, a new product which will allow indie developers and students to develop simultaneously on Xbox 360 and PC, and share their games to others in a new Xbox 360 'Creators Club'.

The details of the new tech are as follows: XNA Game Studio Express will be available for free to anyone with a Windows XP-based PC, and will provide them with what's described as "Microsoft's next-generation platform for game development." In addition, by joining a "creators club" for an annual subscription fee of $99, users will be able to build, test and share their games on Xbox 360, as well as access a wealth of materials to help speed the game development progress.


And:

The games created with XNA Game Studio Express will not initially be available to regular Xbox 360 users, although there is hope that successful titles made with the package might go on to debut in enhanced form on the universal Xbox Live Arcade service, and a longer-term goal is to create a less restricted distribution market using Xbox Live. In the meantime, a second XNA toolset named Game Studio Professional, originally scheduled tentatively for an early 2006 release, is now due in spring 2007, and is intended to cater more directly to professionals aiming for Windows and XBLA game releases.

The rest is in the link above. Ya know, I should really investigate things little birdies tell me. f13 WILL be on this like a fly on a camel's ass.
schild
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Reply #1 on: August 14, 2006, 03:01:28 AM

So uhm, f13.gaming is open for business. Dead serious. Tomorrow I will be making ANOTHER "fake" user to send PMs to.

Ring-a-ding-ding.

Edit: Maybe, will have to talk to a few "folks" about this sort of thing.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2006, 03:07:13 AM by schild »
Trippy
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Reply #2 on: August 14, 2006, 03:02:26 AM

You forgot this part:
Quote
The games created with XNA Game Studio Express will not initially be available to regular Xbox 360 users,[...]
schild
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Reply #3 on: August 14, 2006, 03:06:38 AM

You forgot this part:
Quote
The games created with XNA Game Studio Express will not initially be available to regular Xbox 360 users,[...]

Ninja, ninja Edit.
Quinton
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Reply #4 on: August 14, 2006, 03:31:14 AM

A devkit for $99 is certainly a nice step forward.  I'm curious to see which of the big three console manufacturers first decides to allow indie development *without* severe distribution limitations.   Letting the little guys make their games and sell them online with no hassle would be an interesting thing to see.

Why not let distribution be open? 

Piracy concerns: Perhaps the size of indie games could be somewhat limited to reduce the risk of  people repackaging commercial games.  Combine this with requiring enough identification for payment processing to work and I think you'd limit piracy a bit.

Content concerns:  Does xbox live have content control stuff already?  Perhaps indie titles could be limited to 18+ until they've been through some approval process.  You might have to charge some fee for this to offset the cost of having somebody actually examine the content. 

You can do all kinds of things to provide incentives for developers to go through a bit more process for better placement, to seek wider (hard copy) distribution, etc. 

- Q
schild
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Reply #5 on: August 14, 2006, 03:33:55 AM

You just nailed the problem in the 4th box. But for $99 I can have access to all the indie stuff?

This should have been called "Killer App."
WindiaN
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Reply #6 on: August 14, 2006, 05:38:52 AM

Does this include the ability to mod or is it just for new games? I doubt they would let us mod games but that would be pretty fucking cool.
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Reply #7 on: August 14, 2006, 06:15:50 AM

WoW. This gives the little game developer wannabe in me hope. if I could code something like Marble Ultra Blast and sell it on Live I'd be in heaven. Of course, first I have to do that coding part...

Still, could this be another thing that will blindside Sony? (who I'm becoming more and more convinced is going to lose the console wars this generation.)

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
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Reply #8 on: August 14, 2006, 01:38:51 PM


Could be cool if they do it right (procedural graphics and 'moddable' basic game templates in each genre like FPS, RTS, etc). I'm not holding my breath.
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Reply #9 on: August 14, 2006, 01:43:40 PM

I could see them making game templates for shooters and such. Hell, GG already has game templates SORT OF for RTSs and such.
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Reply #10 on: August 14, 2006, 02:00:27 PM


I'm going with 'more like NWN and less like Torque'. Afterall, if it was like Torque you could just use Torque.
JoeTF
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Reply #11 on: August 14, 2006, 04:06:15 PM

Heh, only problem is you can't show your game to anyone. you have to transfer it via PC with source code included and procedure is seems complicated than writing the game itself shocked
Last thing I would want to do is release source of my precious game so some jackass can add few comas and steal all the glory. Not to mention that open sourcing game kind of kill all possible ways to profit form it.
You can't even show the bloody game to your friends (unless every and each of them them pay 99$, install, set-up and download bunch of stuff).
If they added some badass peer review and distribution system, then it would be awesome. Right now, they're just selling fancy app without any practical use for enduser. You spend 99$ for a privilige to learn basics of Xbox programming (that's asusming it'll be IDE and not some mutated "make your country song" joke) and when you finally learn it and make that most awesome game you're on M$ mercy. They will have ultimate upper hand in any negotiations and could force on you distribution deal with 0,5% of less from sales.
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Reply #12 on: August 14, 2006, 11:27:16 PM

Been staying away from the boards so I wasn't teased into talking about this...but it's finally public!

Basically, this is a first run...the Express version for XNA Game Studio. Anyone interested in the behind the scenes thought that went into Microsoft's planning should listen to the Gamefest Keynote Speech -- long (58 mins) and boring in some places, but I think it gives a really solid feeling behind what Microsoft's intentions are here.

Basically what it boils down to is that this version of the framework is not intended to make game developers money in the short term. You cannot sell your games via the Express version, and you cannot (currently) even distribute outside of the Live Arcade interface. the purpose behind this is to get the power and money of Microsoft behind a gaming industry grass roots movment back towards innovation and gameplay instead of sequels and multi-million dollar budgets.

To anyone that knows much about GarageGames, that's been our vision for 6 years now--and Microsoft decided as part of their long term vision that they didn't want to go it alone. Ironically, GarageGames when it started was very much an anti-Microsoft crew (and MS knows it!), and when they came to us with the idea of using managed code to make games, we kind of giggled. Five months later, we bring you Torque X.

Facts drilled down:

--The XNA Game Studio Express is aimed at hobbyists, and it's a "lite" version, as you'd expect.
----No networking (single player only)
----no financial gain through distribution
----limited XBLA capability

In general, the main idea is to have Schild make a game on his PC, upload it to the Creator's Club, and let Krakrok download it to his PC, build to his XBox360, and play around with it. Kind of like several friends getting together in a garage to jam on some music and see what pops out.

--XNA Game Studio Professional is the next generation of the technology and framework, and is aimed at AAA developers. It will most lilkely (we don't know, they don't even know I'm guessing) be more expensive, and come with a much larger suite of tools and functionality, including networking, full XBLA capability, and distribution for sale.

Note that what Microsoft is doing is providing a framework, i.e. an API and the capability to distribute between PC and console. We (GarageGames) are providing our Torque Game Builder tools to allow you an easier path for making games using this framework.

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Reply #13 on: August 15, 2006, 07:23:36 AM

I'm going with the cynical crowd here.  There are already game development kits available to those who want them, and prices are low enough that there is practically no barrier to a dedicated team or even individual.  The thing that will get this out of the incubator is the XBLA distribution, because that's the biggest unknown (as far as I know) to Joe Shmuckpack when he decided he's really going to make a game this time.  However, if Joe really had an awesome idea and the dedication to get his game built, he'd already have it done.  Maybe with a GG tool, maybe with TADS, but he'd have something.  Now, for people who are currently or looking at peddling their completed game, this would be great.  Eventually.

The part of this that is really important, however, is that Microsoft probably will not have to be incredibly permissive in order to be easier to work with than Nintendo.

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Reply #14 on: August 15, 2006, 11:44:29 AM

This seems like a half-assed version of the http://www.experimentalgameplay.com. You can post your snazzy indie game and have it reviewed by rand0mAssHat13. However it's free and doesn't require you to post all of your source. Plus you can use any engine you want, including Flash. I'm just not seeing what this new XBox Thing has over it.
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Reply #15 on: August 15, 2006, 01:44:13 PM

The root purpose behind this level of Game Studio Express (please note this is my personal opinion, not an official one, although it's supported by the keynote speech at GameFest) is to give people a way to collaborate in whatever method they desire to make a game they can then play on an XBox360 purchased retail, with no dev kit (hardware), or publisher interaction.

Game Studio over XNA in general, is the end result of quite a few years of community research regarding game development. Believe it or not (and remember like I said above, GG was anti-MS for quite a while!), MS has actually done analysis of the future of the gaming industry, and was not pleased--they believe that with the current trends in the industry, we will have substantially less game developers making substantially more expensive and less interesting games over the next 5-10 years. This is one aspect of their way to avoid many of the problems they see.

They looked at the various grass roots movements (again, listen to the keynote), and recognized how the indie film and music industries evolved, and wanted to do whatever they could to help that evolve in the game industry itself. Two critical aspects were "giving indie/hobby game devs a place to work", which in this case turns out to be a virtual workplace provided by Game Studio Express and the XNA capabilities, and giving the tools needed to Game Dev Schools (both the only game dev ones, but even more importantly the actual 4 year universities) so that people will continue to be excited about making games from being a kid. The third critical aspect was partnering with established communites that were already assisting/leading the indie grass roots game developers, hence GG's involvement in the project.

Anecdote: when I was a kid, I was playing games on a Vic-20/Commodore 64. And with some programming, I could make games on the same platform, and that was very very cool. So cool, in fact, that 20 years later when I got a chance to make games for a living, I jumped at it.

 Today, kids are playing games on a console, but can't mess around with console programming. MS wanted to change that.

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Reply #16 on: August 15, 2006, 02:53:11 PM

I'm going with the cynical crowd here.  There are already game development kits available to those who want them, and prices are low enough that there is practically no barrier to a dedicated team or even individual.  The thing that will get this out of the incubator is the XBLA distribution, because that's the biggest unknown (as far as I know) to Joe Shmuckpack when he decided he's really going to make a game this time.  However, if Joe really had an awesome idea and the dedication to get his game built, he'd already have it done.  Maybe with a GG tool, maybe with TADS, but he'd have something.  Now, for people who are currently or looking at peddling their completed game, this would be great.  Eventually.

The part of this that is really important, however, is that Microsoft probably will not have to be incredibly permissive in order to be easier to work with than Nintendo.

No, Joe wouldn't have a game made. Because Joe hates PC Gaming.
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Reply #17 on: August 15, 2006, 04:59:14 PM

I appreciate the sentiment of the GSE. I really do. I go to one of those game development schools where people are really excited about making games, and at the end of the day most people there don't have the drive to finish making a game. It takes a metric fuckton of work to finish something. Giving another target platform to the people who have the drive to make a game in the first place is awesome, but they are the same set of people that are willing to sit down and make their vision work on the PC. I just don't see this empowering a new breed of would be game developers.

My cycnical side suspects they did a survey of their customers and asked "If there was a way you could make a game for the 360, would you?" and a bunch of folks wrote "0mg! Yes!!!!" and then did another beer bong and passed out. There are a lot more folks who think it is cool to develop games than people who actually will put out the effort to make the damn thing.

On the flip side, this is an awesome first step towards opening consumers eyes to indie game development. It's also awesome that there _is_ a console people can develop against. I respect MS/GG for putting this out, I'm just not seeing the fields of fresh developers.
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Reply #18 on: August 15, 2006, 05:23:48 PM

No, Joe wouldn't have a game made. Because Joe hates PC Gaming.

This is a theoretical Joe from 1993.  We can call him "Larry".  Larry Lafferpack.

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Reply #19 on: August 15, 2006, 05:28:30 PM

In general, the main idea is to have Schild make a game on his PC, upload it to the Creator's Club, and let Krakrok download it to his PC, build to his XBox360, and play around with it. Kind of like several friends getting together in a garage to jam on some music and see what pops out.

That's the problem, people aren't sitting in garages nowdays. They have internet. I know few people who are writing game for fun (ok, fun learning). Thing is, they all want to share their creation with friends. Without putting all 50 of them into garage or having them buy 100$ dev kit.
Why there is no way to just send the binaries (you could have a limit of how many people you send it to). In the end it's a console, you can't sniff banking details from it or melt cpu (can you?).
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Reply #20 on: August 15, 2006, 05:36:44 PM

If you wanted to be really cynical about this, you could point out how it's yet another closed, managed framework which, if you use it, will make it nigh-impossible to port your game to a non-Microsoft platform, console or otherwise. Why? Because it's all built on .NET 2.0, so until there's a Mono port of this, you're locked in to a single vendor.

Is there even a port of Mono for PS2-Linux?

And before Schild gets all hot and bothered about how irrelevant my above thought is - there's a port of OpenGL for all major PC platforms as well as PS2 and Gamecube, and Sony's announced that it will be supporting OpenGL on PS3. It's much easier to port games (which is a big part of the modern gaming biz - porting shit all over the place) that all use the same API on each platform.

Granted, if you're just tinkering, then portability is probably not a huge concern, but it may become one if you create an indie sleeper hit and then suddenly have to port your XNA XBLA hit over to the Nintendo-net and PS3-verse.

Also, their restrictions on how to swap and sample games is pretty much rubbish. Having to buy a $99 subscription if you want to look at someone else's indie games... bleah.
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Reply #21 on: August 15, 2006, 08:45:52 PM

So, what rights to their own creations to the indie game makers have? This is very not Microsoft if it doesn't come with some catch that allows MS to pocket parts of your profits or use elements of your code/gameplay.

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Reply #22 on: August 15, 2006, 08:58:05 PM

So, what rights to their own creations to the indie game makers have? This is very not Microsoft if it doesn't come with some catch that allows MS to pocket parts of your profits or use elements of your code/gameplay.
Other than the non-commerical part for Xbox 360 games and the goofy distribution scheme (has to be distributed as source) I don't think Microsoft limits any of your rights. They already allow unrestricted commercial use of their other "Express" tools which can be used to make Windows games so this latest XNA stuff isn't really any different.
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Reply #23 on: August 15, 2006, 09:14:36 PM

If you wanted to be really cynical about this, you could point out how it's yet another closed, managed framework which, if you use it, will make it nigh-impossible to port your game to a non-Microsoft platform, console or otherwise. Why? Because it's all built on .NET 2.0, so until there's a Mono port of this, you're locked in to a single vendor.
Mono doesn't support DirectX.

Quote
Is there even a port of Mono for PS2-Linux?
No.
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Reply #24 on: August 16, 2006, 03:35:10 AM

I'm guessing they want it to somewhat boost 360 sales and gain some foot hold for XNA, both of which requires a large installed user base. Charging $99 for it will surely shut out a very large chunk of their potential users, I don't see many students paying $99 yearly for this for example. Stupid really.
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Reply #25 on: August 16, 2006, 03:35:26 AM

Going to go with the music analogy here, best that I can:

1) "Why should I pay $99/year to share my source code with others?" -- why should you pay hundreds of dollars per instrument to play music together? Also note: the $99/year (Creator's Club) is only required if you want to deploy to the 360. GSE is simply an IDE on top of a framework--you can email all the files you want, any way you want.

2) "Why can't I sell my games with this?" -- When you're jammin in a garage with some friends, you aren't in a recording studio cutting tracks.

3) "The games willl suck/not be worth the subscription fee to download!" -- When you are jamming in a studio with friends, the music sucks pretty bad too. However, sometimes you hit things right, and someone may just be passing by and overhear you and sign a deal.

FYI, the source code only distro is a stopgap measure right now. Trust me--this is bleeding edge technology, and it's just the initial set of features. There is a lot to be done yet to get this working smoothly.

"If you wanted to be really cynical about this, you could point out how it's yet another closed, managed framework...."

Microsoft doesn't expect games to flow directly from GSE to commercial sale. GSE is simply about providing a way for people to collaborate, with the coolness factor of being able to play their game on a console--it's really that simple (at this stage anyway).

I've seen it mentioned on a lot of other forums that people think "Well, the Wii dev kit is gonna be uber cheap--I'll just buy one of those!". Umm, no, you won't. Console developers won't even consider giving a dev kit to a company without proven track record and/or demonstrated high quality game in existence. It doesn't matter if the dev kit cost $0.50--the masses aren't getting them.

Also on that point--while GSE is of course MS only, Torque is not. It's not up and running fully yet, but we are doing our best to simply treat this whole project as just another platform....for example, the plan is that you will be able to create a game with our Torque Game Builder and (with some sort of plugin or additional license of some sort--we don't even know how it will be packaged yet), simply export it to an intermediate format and read it into Torque X---and from there put it on the 360 (with Creator's Club account, or whatever the next iteration of that will be).

I'm not frustrated or anything, but I really think you guys can't see the forest for the trees right now...and as a final thought, something that was demonstrated in the keynote speech but not really recognized by many: there was a cell phone running XNA and integrated with both an XBox360 and a Vista computer as well. "Live Anywhere" means exactly what it sounds like--not cross operating system, but true cross platform.

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Reply #26 on: August 16, 2006, 03:42:23 AM

One more thought: I think everyone (not just f13) is viewing this as a commercial project intended to make money. I can't stress how important it is to realize--it is not. Microsoft is going to lose (in my opinion, no insider information to back it or anything) a metric buttload of money on this, at least in the very short term.

The project isn't intended to shore up revenue on 360, or increase sales of consoles, or anything of that nature. Certainly, it may do so, and of course they had to prove to accounting it at least had a chance of being revenue neutral, but I want to stress again: the XNA team is so passionate about sponsoring indie devs that they travelled down to little old Eugene, OR to convince GG that we should get on board. They walked into a large group of passionate anti-MS'ers (we aren't even allowed to have MS Office on our computers, and just recently went to using Visual Studio) and convinced every last one of us--including Jeff Tunnell who broke away from the establishment 6 years ago due to exactly what MS used to represent--that they were passionate about our beliefs.

This isn't for Microsoft guys--this is for you, and me, and all the little guys. Will it work? Who knows for sure. But they, and we, are trying :)

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Reply #27 on: August 16, 2006, 03:59:37 AM

Quote
I'm not frustrated or anything, but I really think you guys can't see the forest for the trees right now
The problem is there is no forest right now, just a bunch of seeds (the beta isn't even out yet) and not even the promise that there are enough seeds to make a forest. We don't know how much XNA Game Studio Pro and XNA Studio are going to cost. We don't know if there will be restrictions on who can buy the software and who can create signed Xbox games and restrictions on how they can be distributed and how badly the developers are going to get screwed in terms of royalties if they decide to go with Microsoft as the publisher.

Your music analog breaks down because when you buy an instrument there are no restrictions on what you do with the sounds you create with that instrument as long as you aren't infringing on somebody else's copyright. With XNA Game Studio Express you are handcuffed in what you can do on the the Xbox 360 (though there are no restrictions on Windows).

Quote
...and as a final thought, something that was demonstrated in the keynote speech but not really recognized by many: there was a cell phone running XNA and integrated with both an XBox360 and a Vista computer as well. "Live Anywhere" means exactly what it sounds like--not cross operating system, but true cross platform.
As long as the OS has the word "Windows" in it somewhere (I'm assuming the cell phone was running Windows Mobile).
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Reply #28 on: August 16, 2006, 08:04:16 AM

I actually read the posts and dozed through the speech but I have to say... I don't see this as a bad thing.  While there might be problems and some limitations, so far, it doesn't sound like they're anything insurmountable and will open doors for a lot of people who had no place to go.  I can understand people saying it's not for them, but not for anyone?  Or they shouldn't even try?  That bit I don't get.  This is people cooperating... it's usually a good thing.

You don't need a lot of money to do this.  It might work.  If it doesn't work, I don't see a lot of harm coming from it's failure.  It's also cheap enough for people who just want to fiddle around to have a go.  I do think debating the distribution point is a fair argument, however.  I don't see a reason it shouldn't be open.

Also, I don't know why Stephen Zepp would think anyone would tease him!  We NEVER tease.  We're all smart and serious.  And... and... cute.  Smart, serious and cute... that's us, you little Micro-softie, you.

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Reply #29 on: August 16, 2006, 10:58:13 AM

My basic reaction is still wary. On the one hand, I love the idea that this might be the start of something wonderful - the opening on console platforms to development by amateurs and the general developer populace.

On the other hand, since it's .NET 2.0/Direct3D/DirectX, I fear that this will be similar to the Visual Basic of game programming. Admittedly, with the libraries out there today, few mid-level or entry-level developers will need to directly manipulate individual polys or quirks in DirectInput, but it's still important to learn those things. I also fear further vendor lock-in (at the development level) at a time when, despite a surge in OSX ownership, cross-OS PC game ports remain rare. A development like this certainly will not help the cause of easy portability, and Microsoft knows it.

So I view it as both a baby step and a very mixed blessing.
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Reply #30 on: August 16, 2006, 02:56:54 PM

Quick note: For the XNA demo at GameFest, GG ported the entire build of Marble Blast Ultra from the c++ Torque Shader Engine version, to the Torque X C# version. In addition, we added in polysoup collision instead of the BSP based collision that was used in MBU on 360.

The functionality was better, and the performance, while slightly slower in real terms, was completely the same from the player's perspective.

Also, regarding OSX  I think that there is a really good read on Jeff Tunnell's blog regarding game development on OSX.

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Quinton
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Reply #31 on: August 16, 2006, 08:00:03 PM

The cost of the devkit is not at all scary.

Being locked in to xbox and having no distribution channel besides "well *maybe* someone will be impressed and *maybe* something could come of that" is not very interesting to me. 

Expecting indie developers to put all their energy into building something with no distribution options is asking a bit much.  At least with a PC game, I could sell it via a number of online channels, go the shareware route, etc.

As the little guy, you really want to minimize risk if say you're going to live on a shoestring and try to build something cool and get it out there.  Knowing that there's at least some way to sell what you make helps a bit.

- Q
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Reply #32 on: August 16, 2006, 09:21:33 PM

The cost of the devkit is not at all scary.

Being locked in to xbox and having no distribution channel besides "well *maybe* someone will be impressed and *maybe* something could come of that" is not very interesting to me. 

Expecting indie developers to put all their energy into building something with no distribution options is asking a bit much.  At least with a PC game, I could sell it via a number of online channels, go the shareware route, etc.

As the little guy, you really want to minimize risk if say you're going to live on a shoestring and try to build something cool and get it out there.  Knowing that there's at least some way to sell what you make helps a bit.

- Q

I don't think you understand my point--indies cannot ever get dev kits. Not for XBox360, not for any existing, or future console. Period. Won't happen (without a publiser agreement). AAA studios cannot get dev kits, nor can they get slots awarded from Microsoft for development currently, because they aren't available, and won't be.

And I've said it a couple of times now, but this is the very early stages. The technology will evolve, and change as things move along. Microsoft has already said that they will be adding in distributed binary functionality in the future.

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Quinton
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Reply #33 on: August 17, 2006, 12:53:28 AM

Being locked in to xbox and having no distribution channel besides "well *maybe* someone will be impressed and *maybe* something could come of that" is not very interesting to me. 

Expecting indie developers to put all their energy into building something with no distribution options is asking a bit much.  At least with a PC game, I could sell it via a number of online channels, go the shareware route, etc.

I don't think you understand my point--indies cannot ever get dev kits. Not for XBox360, not for any existing, or future console. Period. Won't happen (without a publiser agreement). AAA studios cannot get dev kits, nor can they get slots awarded from Microsoft for development currently, because they aren't available, and won't be.

And I've said it a couple of times now, but this is the very early stages. The technology will evolve, and change as things move along. Microsoft has already said that they will be adding in distributed binary functionality in the future.

I appreciate that devkits are out of the reach of the small shop.  All I'm saying is that *just* a cheap devkit is not sufficient enticement for many people.  A *free* devkit for someone has limited usefulness if you still don't have a way of actually shipping on that platform that you can count on.

I think it's *awesome* that for $99 someone can get tools to develop software for xbox.  That is indeed a huge step forward. 

I know that if I were going to be pouring my heart and soul into a gamesdev project either after work or quitting my day job  to pursue a dream of gamesdev, I would still think twice about doing it with tools that are locked in to a platform with a significant barrier to entry. 

One of the reasons I write embedded systems and operating systems software for a living is that I can work on projects that can ship.  One of the things I learned about shipping closed systems with free development kits but huge hurdles to getting your software deployed (http://developer.danger.com/) is that the vast majority of developers are not interested in dedicating the time needed to build a solid, polished app if the story is "build it all first and then see if the carrier might accept it".

Obviously a major console platform will convince more people to take a leap writing that app, hoping to break into games somehow by showing their chops on a real console.  I'm simply saying that without a clear path to actual distribution, many will choose to pursue projects in other spaces.

Can these managed C# projects be built for and shipped on regular PCs?  If that's the case it's less scary --  My code is not locked into a platform where I have no idea if it might ever see the light of day.

-Q
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #34 on: August 17, 2006, 12:58:09 AM

Can these managed C# projects be built for and shipped on regular PCs?  If that's the case it's less scary --  My code is not locked into a platform where I have no idea if it might ever see the light of day.
Yes there are no restrictions on how XNA Game Studio Express can be used under Windows XP.
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