GDC08: XNAnswers at the bloggers breakfast

Then I wonder why they're giving it away in their DreamSpark program... (program for students, get Creators' Club for free as well as VS2008 Pro, among others).

Maybe I should hold off on installing VS2008 pro then? You guys have the latest XNA Game Studio 2.0?

Not sure about the first (I would guess "no") but I think with the second you can't do bug fixes or whatever at this point. But you can put a new version out if you like.

Why don't you like a Console. It's a consumer electronics's product. It's not like it killed one of your relatives.

Unless it RROD and burned down your house.... :P

@Cyro

I wonder the same thing with people like Marty and Fernando constantly hating on the PS3 for no reason what so ever.

I think certain people want to validate their purchase.

I am a prime example of someone who should hate Microsoft. After all I have had 6 consoles RROD on me & multiple disc' become unplayable due to scratching. I take perfect care of all 3 consoles and I know I have just had extremely bad luck. But if they keep fixing it for free I will keep playing it. PS3 & Wii on the other hand have both worked perfectly since launch without any errors.

@ Cryo

I think it makes perfect sense to not like a CONSOLE. I don't like the Wii because none of the Wii games appeal to me, nor does the lack of online capabilities.

This doesn't mean I hate the Nintendo company. Plenty of people like the Wii and that's fine.
It's about preference and choice. And I choose not to spend my money on Nintendo products I don't care about.

I think its a bit silly to get emotional and angry at people who support a company you don't.

I figure you were just being sarcastic but I hope it get others thinking.

well i have my reasons for not liking the 360. its not like i just say "its not made by Sony i dont want it". i mean i have a Wii and a DS as well. there are a couple things i dont like about 360.

1) the controller, as ergonomic as it is, does not feel right in my hands. its too big and makes my hands sweat. plus i cant stand the analog stick placement either. sure i could just buy a third party controller but they normally arent as good. i do however feel that the triggers and the dip in the analog sticks on the 360 controller is better than on the Playstation but the Playstation controller just feels "right" in my hands.

2) the failure rate is just too high for me to feel comfortable jumping in. i know they are rolling out better consoles now and they have a warranty but still, i cant spend that kind of money of faulty products.

3) most of the friends that i game with are also Playstation fans. i dont want to buy the 360 and not be able to play it with any of my real life friends online.

4) and most importantly, im generally not interested in the games they have to offer. im not a huge FPS fan and they just dont have as good of iterations of the types of games i like. i want RPG's, Racing sims, Platformers, and Action/Adventure games and i feel like the best games in those genres are on (or will be on) the PS3 in Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, God of War, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, etc. Plus the added fact that the majority of good 360 games can be purchased for my PC. that not only saves me money in buying a 360, but it also lets me use a PS3 controller for them.

if you look at my post, i rarely "bash" the 360, i just defend the PS3 from people who bash it and have probably never even played one. i couple of my friends (not my core friends though) have 360's and i often go to their Halo parties and such so i have played the 360 plenty of times. i have my reasons for not liking it and Sony is nowhere near perfect, believe me. the reasons i dont like it are probably the reasons plenty love it and thats why its just my opinion. im not saying the 360 is a bad console by any means, its quite the contrary, it just doesnt have what i like and am familiar with so i didnt purchase it.

All XNA Games can be ported to PC with very little effort, it's one of the big things behind XNA.

Also, I am really interested in this now.

And if you want proof: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb976061.aspx

Fanboy moron alert.

I'd like to reply to your comment before it gets all greyed out:

As a matter of fact, XNA is just gaining steam. If you search around online, people have been making games in the hopes of Community Arcade coming around. And then, voila: GDC Announcement for Community Arcade! For those that have completed games, they can now submit it for exposure, opening a lot of doors for them.

Let me ask you this: (not as an attack on Sony, but as a counterpoint on your "MShit" comments) Can you run homemade games in a PSN environment? At least "MShit" is allowing you to do so.

I just wish they would allow me to put my own HDD in my Xbox. Proprietary crap ftl, but I digress.

Seriously, with a name like yours, you need to do some growing up.

Your rant was total bs and a waste of internet space. Grow up.

I guess e.j., crono knight and nato dork have short memories. this is the 2nd GDC that Mshit has talked up XNA with only 1 game to its credit. facts are facts so get over it and your selves. what kind of game would run on a zune anyway? get real.

OK, you got me with that dork comment. It hurt so bad.

Once again, you need to grow up.

Perhaps you've forgotten how long it took for DirectX to be accepted? Now DX is the standard for PC game development. These things take time to develop and optomize to the point where they are truly useful for all developers.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if XNA leads to a new standard for developing games for both Windows and the next gen Xbox when it finally arrives.

I do not know to much about this XNA studio. The idea sounds very promising and I would like to take a crack or two with. I do have a few programmer buddies from college and I can do all of the art and animations.

Sony did also announce the Phryeengine (somethinglike that) which will actually help real game studios make better multiplatform games for consumers.

As I said the XNA idea is intresting at its core but in the end I don't see it helping the industry. It will give some aspiring developers a platform to gain credibility.


@E.J.

If I understand correctly Microsoft charges for the software suite, they charge you to upoload your game to XBL XNA Arcade and they charge users to download the games. So while your correct Sony has not released anything similar I am sure if they did it wouldn't nickel and dime creators and consumers at every step of the way. Look at the Phryeengine for developers, its free of charge (I believe).

@John McPoop

Great name, btw. The XNA Community Arcade games are actually free to download for Silver and Gold XBox Live members. In regards to Creators' Club members being charged for their games being on Live, I don't think that's true either. CC members pony up $100 a year to get access to some extra tools and the ability to run stuff on 360. To show on Arcade is a "free" bonus to being a CC member.

@ EJ

Thanks for the kind words. Nato Duke gave me an education in the XNA structure. The software is actually free as are the games. The only thing you pay for is the ability to upload the games. As you said at an annual rate or at a quarterly rate. I do think this XNA is going to be pretty incredible. I also think the Phrye Engine will eliminate the bad multiplatform ports the PS3 suffers from right now. Thats really the only complaint I have with the PS3 and thats really with the developers. But it is good to see Sony being proactive and creating this Engine just as its good to see this XNA announcement. I would think we will see a similar announcement from Sony from the PSN sometime in late 2008 or early 2009. It's a monkey see monkey do industry right now.

@John McPoop "I do not know to much about this XNA studio."

That's become very apparent in some of your other comments. If you haven't used XNA, then why don't you shut up about it.

@John McPoop

No problem! Kindness always gets the message across and civility always wins. I'm also glad Sony's PhyreEngine was discussed at GDC. I hope it's a step in the direction of better understanding the PS3's architecture and porting to and from it properly.

i dont think this guy realizes how long it takes to develop a video game. 1 year is great time for a game from scratch. you gotta remember that these people that are making XNA arent gettin paid to do so so they more than likely have other things to do and are just doing games in their free time. i cant tell what kind of fanboy you are but seriously, LBP and WiiWare were both announced a year ago, and where are they now? you have to be realistic. being a fanboy is all well and good but dont be a blind fanboy, they are just annoying.

Yes, I swear Microsoft said Dishwasher was licensed for XBLA during their XNA Gamefest event. Dishwasher won Microsoft's "Dream-Build-Play" contest, the award for which was an XBLA license agreement.

I'm sure it's on its way. This is a good way to give it a lot of exposure by letting people play it.

What a better way to market than to let people try/test your game before you finish it; and if the guy gets some good feedback, the better the final product will be!

Did I miss something, because I didn't hear any plans for Sony to allow people to share amateur PhyreEngine creations on PSN.

Evan already beat me to the punch on the big point you're wrong about, wicked.

Also, name a legit way to dev for a console for $100/year. That's the Creator's Club fee for XNA.

Evan and EJ,

Although I like the idea that XNA brings to the table, I still think that Sony has "1-upped" Microsoft on this one...

As far as price goes, XNA might seem cheaper with the $100 per month price point, but for the PS3, they claim that the debug unit is below $ 1'200 and their engine is being released for free....

XNA has a (as of now) size limit of 150MB, PSN doesn't

XNA is restricted to the 360, the engine released by Sony isn't...

I really don't know about the approval process for XNA games, but Sony claims that theirs will be faster.

Also, Sony gives more freedom to the developers when it comes to pricing...Microsoft, not so much...

Evan and EJ, you miss my point on semi-pro development - indie game developers don't necessarily care about what platform their game will be released on, what they care about is cost because they don't have the big budget to create AAA titles like the EA's and Ubi's of the world do.

And what's cheaper than free? It's not like Sony or MS is going to pay big bucks for exclusivity - what Sony did was say to indie developers, I'm going to give you the tools to do what you want for the PC, and then if it's a success and everything, you can bring it over to the PS3 with minimal effort, which is really good for indie developers but also for Sony because if and when those games sell on PSN, it's a source of revenue and Sony doesn't have to pay a dime - and Sony should have a lot of indie games to choose from soon so it will have it's pick of the cream of the crop.

I'm not saying that the XNA Community features are bad or anything, I'm just saying that (on the amateur perspective) we're not at the point yet where absolutely anyone can easily whip together a game and put it up for others to play, both free for them and free for the gamers who would play it. Because that's what YouTube is - grab some random video camera, shoot 2 minutes of crappy amateur footage, and upload - simple enough for the Facebook crowd to do.

@Noshino "XNA is restricted to the 360, the engine released by Sony isn't..."

XNA is not limited to the 360, it works in Windows. The majority of the XNA creations MS was showing off at XNAGameFest were on the PC, not the 360. And it's also FREE for Windows. The fee is only for the 360.

"I really don't know about the approval process for XNA games, but Sony claims that theirs will be faster."

XNA creations are peer-reviewed. You seem to be confusing XNA with XBLA. XBLA games have the slow and rigorous approval process, not XNA. An XNA creation will only have to go through that process if it is promoted to XBLA and sold for money.

@wickedpheonix "what Sony did was say to indie developers, I'm going to give you the tools to do what you want for the PC, and then if it's a success and everything, you can bring it over to the PS3 with minimal effort"

And that's EXACTLY what Microsoft has done: what MS did was say to indie developers, I'm going to give you the tools to do what you want to demo on the 360, and then if it's a success and everything, you can bring it over to XBLA with minimal effort

"I'm just saying that (on the amateur perspective) we're not at the point yet where absolutely anyone can easily whip together a game and put it up for others to play, both free for them and free for the gamers who would play it."

Between XNA and PhyreEngine, XNA comes closest to "the point where absolutely anyone can easily whip together a game", because it already has tools like "Torque X Builder" which make XNA development almost as easy writing Flash games.

It doesn't matter how easy it is to do, people aren't going to want to do it if it costs them MONEY. That's the whole problem here: MONEY. And I am talking about PEOPLE here, people like you and me, not dedicated developers be they indie or otherwise. If the whole XNA thing, including that Creator's Club, were 100% free (or ad-supported free at the very least) then I would take a serious try at making my own games with it but I won't because I don't feel like paying $50 on that chance, and neither will the girl down the block nor the white collar worker on his free-time. I'm not saying PhyreEngine is anywhere close to where it could or should be, what I am saying is that it's closer than XNA at this point to that goal.

And if all these XNA games are on the PC, I want to see a link to a 100% free, full version of that Dishwasher game because the demo for that rocked.

Sorry.. I thought I hit reply.

Sorry I mean rate as in give feedback, like a simple 1-10 scale of good.