Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Mon 14th Aug 2006 06:18 UTC
Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express targetting the XBOX 360 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.
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Member since:
2006-05-04
Great move, and not only for them, but also for those who want to try developing games.
"Great move"? I'd say smart move from Microsoft. Microsoft seems to be really doing its best to attract and tie developers to their platform lately. Also note: "...about academic institutions that are lining up to include XNA Game Studio Express in their course offerings". I wouldn't be surprised if this comes with all sorts of benefits for those institutions. Try to lure young developers to your platform, get them used to it, get them addicted to it... then if you make sure that the game libraries you use, are only available on your own platform(s), then after some time you have a bunch of developers who are "tuned" for your platforms and who will bring you profit by making games for your platform and in many cases, your platform only, since they never learned to use anything else.
You say it's great for people who want to try developing games, but hasn't this been possible for years on the computer on Windows and Linux? Your choice to go cross-platform with SDL, OpenAL and OpenGL, or stick to Windows with DirectX. Or is it just the fact that it's a console? In that case, you could develop games for the PlayStation2 on Linux if you ordered the Linux kit, if I'm not mistaken.
I know, it is probably a nice thing to do from Microsoft and it will probably benefit a lot of people, but on the other hand, they are doing it in their own interest and the fact I am not so happy about it, is that it ties developers to Microsoft's set of game libraries and to Microsoft's platforms.