User created games, created with an offshoot of their developent software for PC, then those created games available for download on Xbox Live. Hopefully the suite won't be severely limited and some really unique games are created with this.
DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- Hoping to spur interest among video game enthusiasts, creative types and students, Microsoft Corp. said it plans to offer a consumer version of the professional software tools used to create video games for its Xbox 360 console.
The XNA Game Studio Express program, an offshoot of the company's more robust XNA Framework, will be available August 30 for a $99 annual subscription, the company announced Monday.
The software, which requires a Windows PC to operate, will let anyone with the desire create their own video games and then share them on Microsoft's Xbox Live online game service, said Peter Moore, a Microsoft vice president.
"It's our first step of creating a YouTube for video games," Moore said, referring to the wildly popular free online video sharing Web site. "It will give you everything you need to bring your game to life on Xbox 360."
The program would be a first for consoles, which traditionally have been the exclusive domain of skilled programmers, artists and designers.
Moore said the program is basic compared to the pro tools, which cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Though it's designed to eliminate much of the tedious hand-coding involved in making a game from scratch, some basic programming skills are still going to be needed for the consumer version.
Analysts cautioned that making a game -- a multidisciplinary process requiring artists and animators, programmers and mathematicians -- will never be easy.
"It's going to allow very talented individuals to actually be able to do a game in a few weeks instead of taking years and spending millions of dollars," said Richard Doherty, research director at the Envisioneering Group.
Moore described the games users would be able to make as rudimentary. He said future plans may include additional software packs consumers could buy to tweak their games.
Microsoft will regulate the content for appropriateness and intellectual property issues, but users will own their work, Moore said.
Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, said such software could get younger people more interested in choosing video game development as a career.
"There's a problem where kids have stopped getting excited about getting into software development," he said. "One way to get kids excited about it is to give them something they want to do. A lot of kids play video games."
Moore said several schools, including Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the University of Southern California and Georgia Tech, already plan to incorporate the software into their curriculum this fall.
"It's a critical need in the evolution of how video games are made," said Peter Raad, executive director at SMU's Guildhall video game school.
Last edited by Waran on August 15, 2006, 12:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
May 2003 - "Mission Accomplished"
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
You know that at the very least one person will make one really cool game, and a bunch of other people will learn the skills that will land them jobs with video game companies and they'll end up working on the next big thing.
Sure there's going to be a lot of chaff along with the wheat, just don't go off downloading everything that comes out all willy-nilly.
Last edited by Sylvus on August 15, 2006, 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
Zaelath wrote:Yeah, really unique versions of Tetris.
Uniquely brimming with IRC bots and ass rape.
I really don't see the point of this.
If someone can eventually come up with a 360 XBMC I'll like it.
Are you running Media Center on any of your PC's? With the Media Center Extender and all the other stuff you can load on there, I haven't found anything that I could do with XBMC that I can't do on an un-hacked 360.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
Zaelath wrote:Yeah, really unique versions of Tetris.
Uniquely brimming with IRC bots and ass rape.
I really don't see the point of this.
If someone can eventually come up with a 360 XBMC I'll like it.
Are you running Media Center on any of your PC's? With the Media Center Extender and all the other stuff you can load on there, I haven't found anything that I could do with XBMC that I can't do on an un-hacked 360.
I'm not running media center but have Vista loaded as a dual boot.
Is there a well working hack for Windows Media Edition/Vista that allows all movie types to be played via the 360? I need it to play Xvid, Divx, OGM etc? That's what I used XBMC for primarily. It would be easier to do that than switch over to my HTPC sometimes.
Zaelath wrote:Yeah, really unique versions of Tetris.
Uniquely brimming with IRC bots and ass rape.
I really don't see the point of this.
If someone can eventually come up with a 360 XBMC I'll like it.
Are you running Media Center on any of your PC's? With the Media Center Extender and all the other stuff you can load on there, I haven't found anything that I could do with XBMC that I can't do on an un-hacked 360.
I'm not running media center but have Vista loaded as a dual boot.
Is there a well working hack for Windows Media Edition/Vista that allows all movie types to be played via the 360? I need it to play Xvid, Divx, OGM etc? That's what I used XBMC for primarily. It would be easier to do that than switch over to my HTPC sometimes.
What you're looking for is supposedly possible via a variety of methods. this one is supposedly easy. I tried it yesterday for like 10 minutes and didn't quite get it working, but my computer also wasn't playing (what i thought were) Divx movies very well, so it could be something else I have set up incorrectly. That page also has a link to a more complicated hack that I haven't tried. And if you look through that site more, he has a plugin that makes google maps work through your 360 (which I did try and it worked) and something that will automatically convert whatever format the Microsoft DVR software encodes in into WMV or mpeg-2 files.
I did a search on these terms and found a few programs that sound pretty cool, haven't had a chance to try all of them. One of them I found was a plugin that let you stream YouTube clips through your 360, but I think I'm having some sort of a firewall issue that isn't letting me connect right.
If I hadn't just wiped and begun setting up my computer from scratch, I'd probably have better input on a lot of these things.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
This is on top of a windows box running media center - or vanilla XP?
Pyrella - Illusionist - Leader of Ixtlan on Antonia Bayle
if you were walking around and you came upon a tulip with tits, would you let it be for the rest of the world to enjoy.. or would you pick it and carry it off to a secluded area to motorboat them?
-Cadalano
I believe I'm running XP Media Center Edition 2005 Rollup 2 (is the name that it said... something along those lines) and I believe that the "Rollup 2" was required for some of this extender stuff.
But no, it doesn't work on Vanilla XP, XP MCE in some form is required.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
That's what i was under the impression of - however since they called it a hack, and not a generic fucking plugin for MCE of which there are hundreds, I had thought that something useful could be done without having to do a full install of MCE.
Pyrella - Illusionist - Leader of Ixtlan on Antonia Bayle
if you were walking around and you came upon a tulip with tits, would you let it be for the rest of the world to enjoy.. or would you pick it and carry it off to a secluded area to motorboat them?
-Cadalano
pyrella wrote:That's what i was under the impression of - however since they called it a hack, and not a generic fucking plugin for MCE of which there are hundreds, I had thought that something useful could be done without having to do a full install of MCE.
Pyrella - Illusionist - Leader of Ixtlan on Antonia Bayle
if you were walking around and you came upon a tulip with tits, would you let it be for the rest of the world to enjoy.. or would you pick it and carry it off to a secluded area to motorboat them?
-Cadalano
In the final and perhaps most interesting part of the presentation, Oommen revealed that Microsoft is planning a number of user interface enhancements, as well as the ability to integrate the Marketplace into games - such as role-playing games - so that, for example, rare items will be be able to be purchased from within a game itself. Though full integration into game interfaces is the long-term goal, for now, in the short-term, users may be able to create a list of items they need and switch back to Marketplace to purchase that aggregated list.
Also in the works currently is a new type of microtransaction called "consumables", according to Oommen, which will allow a player to purchase items that can be used up and then repurchased at a later date. This feature would be used with items such as tokens to use within a game, or other specific objects which will actually decrease over time or with use, and specific uses of it will be revealed at a later date.
In the final and perhaps most interesting part of the presentation, Oommen revealed that Microsoft is planning a number of user interface enhancements, as well as the ability to integrate the Marketplace into games - such as role-playing games - so that, for example, rare items will be be able to be purchased from within a game itself. Though full integration into game interfaces is the long-term goal, for now, in the short-term, users may be able to create a list of items they need and switch back to Marketplace to purchase that aggregated list.
Also in the works currently is a new type of microtransaction called "consumables", according to Oommen, which will allow a player to purchase items that can be used up and then repurchased at a later date. This feature would be used with items such as tokens to use within a game, or other specific objects which will actually decrease over time or with use, and specific uses of it will be revealed at a later date.
I guess it's time to dust off this old pic!
it sounds like a pretty cool deal letting users make their own games. i saw a report on it on CNN tonight. even though it's a 'basic' program compared to the pro stuff, i bet we'll get some pretty nice games and maybe even some cool ports if they find a way to do it.
what this really reminds me of is the elder scrolls modding program, which opened up the door for every kind of mod imaginable. some of the bigger and more well-known mods for morrowind were pretty decent. they had a middle earth one which looked like it would have been tons of fun if it werent for the copyright infringments they ran into halfway through the development..
