XNA

By: Derek Yu

On: August 15th, 2006

So yeah, I guess the big news right now is that Microsoft is releasing a toolkit called XNA Game Studio Express that will let anyone with $99 create titles simulataneously for XBox 360 and PC. The caveat is that in order for people to play your games on their 360, they also need to have paid $99 to join the “XNA Creator’s Club” and must have the appropriate runtimes installed on their console. Then they can download your source files (via XBox Live?) and compile them to play. Commercial PC games can be made with Express, however.

Later, M$ is planning on releasing XNA Game Studio Professional, which will allow you to create commercial games for XBox.

The beta of XNA Studio Express is going out August 30th, and, since it is beta, you will not be able to share games made with it on XBox 360.

Link: XNA FAQ (Microsoft)

EDIT: Oh yeah, there’s a XNA team blog, too.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Posted in Community, Developers, Xbox 360

Albert Lai

Sounds like another ridiculously capitalistic attempt to squeeze money from people. 99 dollars to get access to a few games? The heck?
Derek

Well, 99 dollars to get access to the games and also let you make your own games. :)
bv728

You can make PC games for free; you pay $99 to get access to the X-Box 360 development libraries, and then you can also play other developers games. I honestly think that’s just a side effect of sorts, rather than something they’re using as a selling point. They’re just putting the new XNA Framework out there because they want people to use it instead of Managed DirectX in the future, and if they find some indie developers worth hiring/buying out, it’ll be a bonus for them.
Ryan A

Wow, I am dissapointed. I was thinking it was going to be free. I’d pay 99$ for a dev kit with the ability to sell my games, but since that isn’t what this is about…:(. And having to pay 99$ to play the games? Eh, retarded.
B. Gates

suit yourself, mortal.
P. Gates

Tee hee hee
noizbot

$99/year to develop for X360 (even to a closed community of other like developers) is still a very good step forward. I can’t think of many other console development platforms “opened” in this manner, other than the old Net Yaroze thing from Sony (which was much more expensive and also a mess) and the GP32.

Apparently there is also going to be a commercial license for “under $1000” for X360 Live Arcade development, which will let anyone buy/play your games. I’m not sure if this is a one-time fee per studio/developer, an annual thing or per game… As long as it’s not per game that’s pretty cool.
Teeth

Yes, this is very awesome. I think that is all I have to say.