After being announced by J Allard at GDC two years ago (and again last year), Microsoft unveiled their XNA framework this morning, kicking off this year's GDC event. The tools are designed to streamline the development process, and facilitate porting of titles from the Windows environment to the 360 and vice-versa.
They've also announced that they're opening their Xbox Live Server Platform to publishers and developers. It appears this will allow game developers to add more functionality into their Live implementation and "can also be used to support the creation of massively multiplayer online game worlds." What's that? MMOs? A response to Blizzard COO Paul Sams' criticism that the Xbox Live is a "walled garden" or was that obfuscation until a real announcement can be made?
This announcement is ostensibly in lieu of a keynote from Redmond this year, and the raison d’être for Wednesday's blogger's breakfast with Peter Moore and Chris Satchell (GM of Game Developer Group... the XNA guys).
UPDATE: If you're really curious, you can check out the presentation, via Major Nelson. He also teases, "...the XNA team will be making some announcements. They are starting to trickle out... plus I am told more ‘wickedly cool tech’ news will happen later this week once the event kicks off and they start showing demos." Tip of the iceberg?
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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All the invisible walls everywhere so your set to follow paths. *chuckle*
With criticism from devs and pubs, and Sony's open architecture for this. Who didnt see this coming?
It can only benefit gamers everywhere.
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What is the deal with Microsoft's obsession with the letter "X"? :S
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Don't you know? It's the X-factor.
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>What is the deal with Microsoft's obsession with the >letter "X"? :S
I think that goes back to Direct X. Direct X made games programing work with Windows rather than just making DOS games which wrote directly to the hardware.
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At first computers had nothing but crap applications, game wise. At some point ( I don't know when) they surpassed the consoles. As much as I love the boxes, cubes, and stations, they never quite top a real expensively upgraded computer.
What I've always wanted to see (in my fantasy world of course) is a vg console that you can install pc games onto. If I could install Dawn of War, Unreal Tournament 04, and Sims2 onto a next gen system, I could save over half the cost of my next computer.
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I am curious to see how horrible the PS3's Linux will be. If Sony messed with any distribution, it can't possibly be worth anything. However, if it is useful, one has to wonder if we'll see Windows 360. That would mess up the PC market...
It's good to see the idea of streamlining cross-over. Especially for someone like me who refuses to game on a PC unless necessary. This can only be positive for game publishers.
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Ports sell because many people don't own multiple systems. And as far as I remember, there were many more xbox -> pc ports than vice versa.
XNA is an approach to allow developers to collaborate more effeciently between porting between the 360 and the PC. Hopefully if it delivers in reducing the amount of time developers spend on project management we'll see better and better ports in the future.
Ports will never die, only the tools they use for them.
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Doom didnt look any better to me then it did on my xbox, and it sucked on both anyway. Its the PC gamer way of thinking thats messin up video games anyway. The need to upgrade all the time instead of improve game play is why we have a premature next gen race going on. and why Nintendo just may get back on top(tho im not feeling the controler)
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As a PC gamer for nearly 20 years I can say with the fuggin ultimate authority that PC gaming has almost always been 3-5 years ahead of consoles. (long before DirectX or OpenGL PC games were pulling off amazing feats of graphical superiority)
Now the important aspect to consider is the originality of the games and consoles win that particular race hands down. PCs had no Sonic or Mario....instead Commander Keen. Unfortunately FMV games dominated for too long around the time that the "MPC" rated computers were being sold...likely for their "OMFG! I can't believe the realism!" that "Dragons Lair" ushered into the arcades about a decade earlier)
That said, DirectX/OpenGL have made things much better for PCs and apparently the console experience is about to get a whole lot better thanks to said technologies as well!
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