Microsoft To Release Xbox 360 Dev Tools For Free

[Shawn Andrich]

Microsoft To Release Xbox 360 Dev Tools For Free

Microsoft has announced plans to release an "express" version of their Xbox 360 development tools to the public this holiday season.

During the Microsoft Gamefest 2006 event, Chris Satchel, general manager of the Game Developer Group at Microsoft, announced that they would be making a free version of the XNA development tools available to students and garage designers. XNA is a development environment based on Visual Studio® Express and .NET that simplifies the integration and use of game content.

The tools will not allow you to create a game from scratch, but they should streamline the process for independent developers looking to get on the right track. Programs like Microsoft Visual Studio ($599) and 3D software such as Autodesk ($2000 minimum) would also still be required to actually create a 3D game. For developers looking to sell their completed products, the XNA FAQ [http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/] explains that, "XNA Game Studio Express will enable you to create Windows and now Xbox 360 console games much more easily. These games are limited to non-commercial scenarios for 360 titles created with XNA Game Studio Express. However, XNA Game Studio Express may be used to create commercial games which target Windows."

By joining a ?creators club? for an annual subscription fee of $99 (U.S.), users will be able to build, test and share their games on the Xbox 360 and access materials to help speed the game development progress. According to CNN [http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/08/14/microsoft.game.software.ap/index.html], Microsoft Games VP Peter Moore is optimistic about the new tools. "It's our first step of creating a YouTube for video games," he said. "It will give you everything you need to bring your game to life on Xbox 360."

More than ten universities are planning to add the tools to their curriculum, including Southern California, Georgia Tech College of Computing and Southern Methodist University Guildhall.

The Studio Express beta will be released on August 30th.

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[Bongo Bill]

Yes, I saw this. It looks very exciting. I might have to get the beta.

 

[Lex Darko]

So MS is trying to bring a vertible mod community to consoles. I guess now there's one less difference between PC and console gaming.

 

[dosboot]

My interest was peaked hearing about this, but you have to carefully look at the details. The development software and framework are free, but in order to make a game for the 360 you have to:

1) pay 100 dollars a year for a ?Creator?s Club? subscription
2) send your game to the other person PC and have them transfer it to their 360
3) they must also have a ?Creator?s Club? subscription
4) you can't sell your creations

But you could use the same free software to make the game for windows instead, in which case neither party has to buy the ?Creator?s Club? subscription, and you can sell your game.

"You Tube" for the 360 this is not. You might as well get a real dev kit if you wanted to make a 360 game (will they sell those to anyone?).

 

[Virgil]

I'm actually pretty excited about this - I'll probably sign up for it, even though I know that I'll likely only play around with it occasionally and for personal use. Afterall, I paid nearly $1000 for a Net Yarouze [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze] back during college, so $99 to play with what (I suspect) are significantly better tools seems like a bargain. Hopefully this program will get better support than the Net Yarouze program as well, which often felt like cripple-ware.

The only disappointment is that, for the initial launch, distribution of 360-based games will require sending around full source code and assets. The XNA Blog [http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/] does say that "We fully intend to fix this in the future, and if I have anything to do about it, it will be sooner than later." though, so hopefully this will become significantly cleaner in the future. If there is a way to compile single-game packages, we could easily see a 'YouTube for the 360' crop up, and though only useful for the content club members, other enthusiasts are really the best audience for 'amateur developers' anyway.

Honestly though, if the game is good enough that the general population should want to play it, then that would be the time to go to the XBLA submissions group and see if it could go commercial. I'm certain that's something that they're hoping for as well.