Microsoft To Enable User-Created Xbox 360 Games

RC Cola · Aug 14, 2006

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10458

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.

In an official statement related to this major announcement, Microsoft suggested that the new product "...will democratize game development by delivering the necessary tools to hobbyists, students, indie developers and studios alike to help them bring their creative game ideas to life while nurturing game development talent, collaboration and sharing that will benefit the entire industry."

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.

Microsoft has enlisted the help of several partners for this major announcement - indie publisher/developer GarageGames, technology provider and creator of Marble Blast Ultra, has migrated both its Torque Shader Engine and new Torque Game Builder 2-D visual game designer over to the XNA Game Studio Express platform, and Autodesk announced that game developers and enthusiasts can now more easily incorporate content into XNA Game Studio Express via Autodesk's FBX file exchange format.

In addition, more than 10 universities and their game development schools — including University of Southern California, Georgia Tech College of Computing and Southern Methodist University Guildhall — have already pledged to integrate console game development and XNA Game Studio Express into their curricula for the first time, and Xbox 360 will be the only console at the center of all coursework.

The XNA Game Studio Express beta will be available Aug. 30, 2006, as a free download on Windows XP, for development on the Windows XP platform. The final version of XNA Game Studio Express will be available this holiday season.

Microsoft's general manager of the Game Developer Group, Chris Satchell, commented on this major announcement: "By unlocking retail Xbox 360 consoles for community-created games, we are ushering in a new era of cross-platform games based on the XNA platform. We are looking forward to the day when all the resulting talent-sharing and creativity transforms into a thriving community of user-created games on Xbox 360."
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http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152832

The Next Generation of Xbox Live Arcade? Community Arcade
Microsoft hopes to create a YouTube-like space on Live for user-created games.

Microsoft's announcement that XNA Game Studio Express would put development tools in the hands of anyone with a Windows XP-enabled PC and allow them to develop for both the PC and 360 is indicative of the direction that the company plans to take the Live Arcade space.

The eventual goal is provide something Microsoft is referring to as "Community Arcade" (whether the name sticks or not is for branding experts to debate). That community arcade is a space for users to upload games to the Live service and allow other users to download those games.

With the upcoming XNA Game Studio Express release, users will be able to connect their PC to their Xbox 360 and port their game to the console to play -- but they won't be able to upload it or transfer it to their friends via the Live network. They will, however, be able to email their game files to friends, or download the game to a memory stick and take it to a friend's house where it can be loaded on to the PC and then ported on to their Xbox 360.

Obviously, Internet sites could start appearing where players can download these homebrewed Xbox 360 titles and then port them over to their PC -- Microsoft hopes to see a community grow around the toolset -- but the logistical issues for a "Community Arcade" are still pretty numerous.

Who will own the software? If one considers how rigid Microsoft's certification process is right now for Live, how will it change when users are uploading games to that space? What about viruses and potential hacks? What if another platform holder likes what a user is creating on Xbox Live and decides they want to publish the game?

Right now, Microsoft doesn't have any answer to these questions; it's just too early. They are focused on at least empowering users to create. They've compared creating videogames to creating music, except in the pre-free XNA world; the barrier to entry was the cost. It'd be like a guitar costing half a million dollars, they said. As a hypothetical ideal, Community Arcade is the right step for a company like Microsoft trying to prove itself as a leader in the industry, but the challenges it faces in this case are numerous. How will they handle them?
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DaDakota · Aug 14, 2006

This is EXACTLY what we were going to do on the Gizmondo, without the subscription, we were going to sell our SDK and allow people to share user created games amongst themselves.

DD

Coach AI · Aug 14, 2006

Nintendo had been hinting at going in this direction with the Wii, as well.

I like it; be interesting to see what gets put out there.

RC Cola · Aug 14, 2006

I think all 3 have hinted at doing something like this (with one of them having done so already).

It sounds like these consoles will be great for smaller, independent developers, assuming services like these take off.

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