Glockstar
08-15-2006, 12:01 PM
Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express
Code your own 360 titles! New project lets anyone develop. The Net Yaroze walked the same road. Will Microsoft succeed?
by Gerry Block
August 14, 2006 - Gamefest, Microsoft's yearly show for game developers, kicks off today. The event should prove particularly exciting to many more than the hardcore professional development clique, as Microsoft is announcing a new community based game development initiative, dubbed the XNA Game Studio Express.
The software, which Microsoft plans to make available as a free beta product this month and as a completed subscription service by the end of the year, will provide hobbyist game developers with easy to use tools to create their own Xbox 360 titles. The Studio Express software is based upon the XNA tools Microsoft provides to professional developers, yet lowers the expertise-barrier to entry so as to allow for a much broader range of programmers to develop games for the 360.
Microsoft intends to offer the completed version of XNA Game Studio Express by the end of the year as a $99 a year subscription service. Subscribers will have access to the software package as well as a community of other junior-developers. Subscribers will be able to offer up their work for others to download, but only other subscribers will be able to play it. Microsoft has hopes of developing a large-scale system down the road that will allow amateur-developers to offer up their creations for purchase via Xbox Live Arcade, and later a veritable YouTube-style community-judged submission system.
Dev-kits for recent consoles have been prohibitively expensive for all but the most committed amateur developer. PS2 dev-kits cost $20,000 at launch, and full dev-kits for the older PSOne were $4,000. Nintendo broke the trend recently by reportedly selling Wii dev-kits for only $2,000. Perhaps in fear of Nintendo snapping up the mass of pent-up creativity and innovation that exists among independent and enthusiastic amateur developers, Microsoft's value-leading initiative will be the most accessible console development program in history.
History and Analysis
While the XNA Game Studio Express program is certainly the cheapest console development suite in recent years, it is hardly the first. Many vintage consoles, like the PC-Engine Develo, supported amateur creation. It was Sony, however, that last launched a major community development program. The Net Yaroze ("Lets do it together!") launched in 1997 and for $750 dollars, Sony offered enthusiast developers a unique region-free black PS2, documentation, some software, and community hosting and support. At the program's launch, Sony described a rather similar hopeful end-game to what Microsoft envisions now, namely the eventual development of high quality, innovative works developed by amateurs and released to the mass market.
The Net Yaroze's true end-game was underwhelming. Though it was hyped in the gaming press as the harbinger of a new era of genre busting innovation, a variety of factors hindered the Net Yaroze project in bearing fruit. 3D modeling in console gaming had really only begun 2 years earlier when the Playstation launched in 1995. The tools, support, and talent for quality 3D games in the amateur circuit was limited at the time, and the fact that the PS1 ran games programmed in Assembly the best further increased the difficultly. The community aspect was also limited. While Sony did host a community portal with messaging and homepage hosting, only Net Yaroze owners could play Net Yaroze developed games, which was an obviously limited audience. Over the years a few polished products emerged. Sony released selected titles on demo disks packaged with the Official PlayStation Magazine, and Bitter Boy: Operation Monster Mall won an award at the 1998 Game Developer UK Competition. Overall quality however, was horrendous, and due to the variety of limitations that weighed on the project, never broke a formulaic mold.
A lot has changed over the years, and Microsoft may now stand poised to make the Net Yaroze dream a reality. A $99 yearly fee and the ability to use consumer hardware represent the lowest barrier to entry there has ever been in console development. 3D modeling is ubiquitous, and a great deal more talent and interest exists at an amateur level today than back in 1997. Distribution-wise, it's hard to imagine a better means of dissemination than Xbox Live Arcade. If quality product begins to roll out of the XNA Game Studio Express community it could well supplant the Xbox Live Arcade market currently held by the major publishers and their tardy re-releases.
An unquestionably noble aspect of the Net Yaroze project was Sony's outreach to universities with hardware and support to help future game designers. Microsoft will also be partnering with universities with the XNA Game Studio Express project, and many have already made plans to incorporate it in curriculum. Back in 1997, at least in America, there were few, if any, academic institutions that offered game-focused programming classes. There are now game-design majors offered around the country and the XNA Game Studio Express may revolutionize students' opportunities to directly create console titles.
The XNA Game Studio Express project won't bear fruit quickly, and the first projects are unlikely to blow anyone's mind. Given a few years and some nurturing by Microsoft, however, the project may well take root. The debate over whether the massive costs and high risk of modern game development is stifling creativity and innovation has been contentious for years. If the stars align for the Studio Express project, we may finally get an answer.
http://gear.ign.com/articles/725/725557p1.html
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Microsoft unveils 'anybody' XNA
Everyday gamers can get a shot at making cross-platform PC, Xbox 360 games with XNA Game Studio; company envisions user-created games as "fully realized" as Halo 2.
By Patrick Caldwell, GameSpot
Posted Aug 13, 2006 9:01 pm PT
Looming over the game industry are big problems, Microsoft warns.
Stressed game developers are burning out, universities are graduating fewer programmers and game designers, and small-game developers--forced to pay large licensing costs to make games--don't have the time or money to turn their innovative ideas into playable games, the company says. But a new piece of Microsoft's development technology is aiming to wipe those troubles out, all at once.
On the eve of Gamefest, the company's conference for developers in Seattle, Microsoft announced the XNA Game Studio development platform, "a far easier environment" that small developers, game enthusiasts, and students can use to make games. XNA Game Studio is an extension of Microsoft's cross-platform XNA technology, which offers gamemakers a standardized set of tools for both PC and Xbox 360 development.
Anyone can freely download the toolset, available in beta form on August 30 and full form by the end of the year. The toolset comes in two flavors: the entry-level XNA Game Studio Express and the advanced XNA Game Studio Professional. Developing games using Express and releasing them on the PC will be free, but those who want their games available for download on the Xbox 360 must pay $99 a year as part of Microsoft's Creators Club.
In spring 2007, Microsoft will release the professional version, the only way to sell games created using the toolset. The pro version will feature "new capabilities more geared toward professional game developers" and a higher price, said Scott Henson, the director of platform strategy at the Microsoft Game Developer Group. Henson declined to reveal the amount. All the various methods of selling games--digital distribution, Xbox Live Marketplace, and boxed retail games--will probably be available to gamemakers, but the details haven't been decided, he said.
Launching alongside the August 30 beta toolset is a starter kit containing tutorials and basic but "fully realized games" that beginning developers can tinker with to learn the ins and outs of programming.
Ports of classics like Pac-Man and Galaga on Xbox Live Arcade are just the "low end" of what the toolset can create, Henson told GameSpot during a phone conference prior to Gamefest.
"Our ambition is to get a game as fully realized as, maybe, Halo 2," he said. "We don't know if we'll get there...but certainly we envision being able to do that with this technology."
As larger companies focus solely on making guaranteed hits, they often fail to imagine new ideas or genres, Henson said. Counter-Strike--the mod to Valve Software's original Half-Life that became one of the most popular games in history--is one "great example" of ambitious game hobbyists producing something fresh.
"Who's going to be the next Doom? Who's going to be the next Counter-Strike?...All [their developers] were, quote, hobbyists at some point," Henson said. "And that's where the really inspired ideas that really bubble up and create the next phenomenon come from."
More than 10 universities, including the University of Southern California and Georgia Tech, have agreed to use XNA Game Studio Express in their curricula, said Dave Mitchell, the director of marketing at the Microsoft Game Developer Group. In an industry whose developers are only 1 percent female, university-sponsored "boot camps"--where kids, and especially girls, can get an early introduction to programming and game development--are crucial, he said.
Though some criticize best sellers such as The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft for stalling innovation--the two regularly dominate sales charts, pilfering money away from new titles, critics bemoan--people forget that Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game and EA's virtual-life sim were landmark innovations upon release, Henson said. And it never hurts to usher in new blood.
"All of the dynamics that we've talked about--why we're so excited from an enabling perspective--is why [World of Warcraft] is so popular," he said. "We've got a growing industry in terms of overall dollars, but we don't have a growing audience. And if we're going to grow the audience, we're going to have to see more than the types of games topping the charts."
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6155590.html
Code your own 360 titles! New project lets anyone develop. The Net Yaroze walked the same road. Will Microsoft succeed?
by Gerry Block
August 14, 2006 - Gamefest, Microsoft's yearly show for game developers, kicks off today. The event should prove particularly exciting to many more than the hardcore professional development clique, as Microsoft is announcing a new community based game development initiative, dubbed the XNA Game Studio Express.
The software, which Microsoft plans to make available as a free beta product this month and as a completed subscription service by the end of the year, will provide hobbyist game developers with easy to use tools to create their own Xbox 360 titles. The Studio Express software is based upon the XNA tools Microsoft provides to professional developers, yet lowers the expertise-barrier to entry so as to allow for a much broader range of programmers to develop games for the 360.
Microsoft intends to offer the completed version of XNA Game Studio Express by the end of the year as a $99 a year subscription service. Subscribers will have access to the software package as well as a community of other junior-developers. Subscribers will be able to offer up their work for others to download, but only other subscribers will be able to play it. Microsoft has hopes of developing a large-scale system down the road that will allow amateur-developers to offer up their creations for purchase via Xbox Live Arcade, and later a veritable YouTube-style community-judged submission system.
Dev-kits for recent consoles have been prohibitively expensive for all but the most committed amateur developer. PS2 dev-kits cost $20,000 at launch, and full dev-kits for the older PSOne were $4,000. Nintendo broke the trend recently by reportedly selling Wii dev-kits for only $2,000. Perhaps in fear of Nintendo snapping up the mass of pent-up creativity and innovation that exists among independent and enthusiastic amateur developers, Microsoft's value-leading initiative will be the most accessible console development program in history.
History and Analysis
While the XNA Game Studio Express program is certainly the cheapest console development suite in recent years, it is hardly the first. Many vintage consoles, like the PC-Engine Develo, supported amateur creation. It was Sony, however, that last launched a major community development program. The Net Yaroze ("Lets do it together!") launched in 1997 and for $750 dollars, Sony offered enthusiast developers a unique region-free black PS2, documentation, some software, and community hosting and support. At the program's launch, Sony described a rather similar hopeful end-game to what Microsoft envisions now, namely the eventual development of high quality, innovative works developed by amateurs and released to the mass market.
The Net Yaroze's true end-game was underwhelming. Though it was hyped in the gaming press as the harbinger of a new era of genre busting innovation, a variety of factors hindered the Net Yaroze project in bearing fruit. 3D modeling in console gaming had really only begun 2 years earlier when the Playstation launched in 1995. The tools, support, and talent for quality 3D games in the amateur circuit was limited at the time, and the fact that the PS1 ran games programmed in Assembly the best further increased the difficultly. The community aspect was also limited. While Sony did host a community portal with messaging and homepage hosting, only Net Yaroze owners could play Net Yaroze developed games, which was an obviously limited audience. Over the years a few polished products emerged. Sony released selected titles on demo disks packaged with the Official PlayStation Magazine, and Bitter Boy: Operation Monster Mall won an award at the 1998 Game Developer UK Competition. Overall quality however, was horrendous, and due to the variety of limitations that weighed on the project, never broke a formulaic mold.
A lot has changed over the years, and Microsoft may now stand poised to make the Net Yaroze dream a reality. A $99 yearly fee and the ability to use consumer hardware represent the lowest barrier to entry there has ever been in console development. 3D modeling is ubiquitous, and a great deal more talent and interest exists at an amateur level today than back in 1997. Distribution-wise, it's hard to imagine a better means of dissemination than Xbox Live Arcade. If quality product begins to roll out of the XNA Game Studio Express community it could well supplant the Xbox Live Arcade market currently held by the major publishers and their tardy re-releases.
An unquestionably noble aspect of the Net Yaroze project was Sony's outreach to universities with hardware and support to help future game designers. Microsoft will also be partnering with universities with the XNA Game Studio Express project, and many have already made plans to incorporate it in curriculum. Back in 1997, at least in America, there were few, if any, academic institutions that offered game-focused programming classes. There are now game-design majors offered around the country and the XNA Game Studio Express may revolutionize students' opportunities to directly create console titles.
The XNA Game Studio Express project won't bear fruit quickly, and the first projects are unlikely to blow anyone's mind. Given a few years and some nurturing by Microsoft, however, the project may well take root. The debate over whether the massive costs and high risk of modern game development is stifling creativity and innovation has been contentious for years. If the stars align for the Studio Express project, we may finally get an answer.
http://gear.ign.com/articles/725/725557p1.html
-
Microsoft unveils 'anybody' XNA
Everyday gamers can get a shot at making cross-platform PC, Xbox 360 games with XNA Game Studio; company envisions user-created games as "fully realized" as Halo 2.
By Patrick Caldwell, GameSpot
Posted Aug 13, 2006 9:01 pm PT
Looming over the game industry are big problems, Microsoft warns.
Stressed game developers are burning out, universities are graduating fewer programmers and game designers, and small-game developers--forced to pay large licensing costs to make games--don't have the time or money to turn their innovative ideas into playable games, the company says. But a new piece of Microsoft's development technology is aiming to wipe those troubles out, all at once.
On the eve of Gamefest, the company's conference for developers in Seattle, Microsoft announced the XNA Game Studio development platform, "a far easier environment" that small developers, game enthusiasts, and students can use to make games. XNA Game Studio is an extension of Microsoft's cross-platform XNA technology, which offers gamemakers a standardized set of tools for both PC and Xbox 360 development.
Anyone can freely download the toolset, available in beta form on August 30 and full form by the end of the year. The toolset comes in two flavors: the entry-level XNA Game Studio Express and the advanced XNA Game Studio Professional. Developing games using Express and releasing them on the PC will be free, but those who want their games available for download on the Xbox 360 must pay $99 a year as part of Microsoft's Creators Club.
In spring 2007, Microsoft will release the professional version, the only way to sell games created using the toolset. The pro version will feature "new capabilities more geared toward professional game developers" and a higher price, said Scott Henson, the director of platform strategy at the Microsoft Game Developer Group. Henson declined to reveal the amount. All the various methods of selling games--digital distribution, Xbox Live Marketplace, and boxed retail games--will probably be available to gamemakers, but the details haven't been decided, he said.
Launching alongside the August 30 beta toolset is a starter kit containing tutorials and basic but "fully realized games" that beginning developers can tinker with to learn the ins and outs of programming.
Ports of classics like Pac-Man and Galaga on Xbox Live Arcade are just the "low end" of what the toolset can create, Henson told GameSpot during a phone conference prior to Gamefest.
"Our ambition is to get a game as fully realized as, maybe, Halo 2," he said. "We don't know if we'll get there...but certainly we envision being able to do that with this technology."
As larger companies focus solely on making guaranteed hits, they often fail to imagine new ideas or genres, Henson said. Counter-Strike--the mod to Valve Software's original Half-Life that became one of the most popular games in history--is one "great example" of ambitious game hobbyists producing something fresh.
"Who's going to be the next Doom? Who's going to be the next Counter-Strike?...All [their developers] were, quote, hobbyists at some point," Henson said. "And that's where the really inspired ideas that really bubble up and create the next phenomenon come from."
More than 10 universities, including the University of Southern California and Georgia Tech, have agreed to use XNA Game Studio Express in their curricula, said Dave Mitchell, the director of marketing at the Microsoft Game Developer Group. In an industry whose developers are only 1 percent female, university-sponsored "boot camps"--where kids, and especially girls, can get an early introduction to programming and game development--are crucial, he said.
Though some criticize best sellers such as The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft for stalling innovation--the two regularly dominate sales charts, pilfering money away from new titles, critics bemoan--people forget that Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game and EA's virtual-life sim were landmark innovations upon release, Henson said. And it never hurts to usher in new blood.
"All of the dynamics that we've talked about--why we're so excited from an enabling perspective--is why [World of Warcraft] is so popular," he said. "We've got a growing industry in terms of overall dollars, but we don't have a growing audience. And if we're going to grow the audience, we're going to have to see more than the types of games topping the charts."
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6155590.html