~360 Homebrew: XNA Game Studio Express

[PaulCunningham]

Misleading FAQ apparently...

Re-reading the FAQ I think I understand where the confusion lies. If a developer has a game that is 17MB then they can sell it at the 200, 400 or 800 MB price point. The limit on the 200 price point is 50MB and 150MB for the other two. The padding to boost the size and price is a complete non-issue as it serves no purpose

[fog]

Misleading FAQ apparently...

Re-reading the FAQ I think I understand where the confusion lies. If a developer has a game that is 17MB then they can sell it at the 200, 400 or 800 MB price point. The limit on the 200 price point is 50MB and 150MB for the other two. The padding to boost the size and price is a complete non-issue as it serves no purpose

Yeah I guessed that's what they meant. Mind, the fact cost limits the maximum file size would suggest that when Freeware does become possible, the max. file sizes for that might even be considerably smaller than 50Mb.


The other concern that I mentioned when the XNA Community Games structure was first announced, is to do with this:

Will professional AAA, and Xbox LIVE Arcade developers be able to create Community Games?
Absolutely, this distribution channel is for anyone who is developing games using XNA Game Studio. As long as your game meets the requirements, and you are a premium member of the creators club, you can submit games to the service.

Firstly that means small indi games could well get buried under a pile of "pro" games, losing the whole indi, community aspect of it. And secondly, given the problems we know Jeff had with the whole SG certification process, as a pro developer you'd have to be mad to go the XBLA route when you can publish through Community and avoid all the certification costs and stresses.

Community games might well be lower profile than XBLA titles, but we all know how hard it is to find titles once they've slipped off the New Releases list anyway. Any reduced revenue might well be more than made up for by the reduced development costs.

Obviously a lot of this is still unknown, but the more I hear the more I think Microsoft now see XBLA as somewhere that traditionally budget priced games will get released, and all the smaller games or arcade remakes will be forced into the community games area.

[PaulCunningham]

I'm not sure we'll see a mass migration from XBLA to XNA GS - no leaderboards, no achievments, no avatars, conversion to C# and flaky fpu perf will be enough to put a lot of folks off I think. I posed the question in the Steam thread as to whether Community Games would be a viable alternative to XBLA for Llamasoft.

I do think there is a deliberate bluring of the lines though which has surprised me somewhat. I was definitely expecting free Community Games first and then sometime down the line maybe a limited revenue model for the 'best' ones. And a real distinction beween the pro and homebrew channels.

I need to work out whether I can be bothered with the hassle of creating stuff for sale. I dabbled with a shareware model for Alien Abduction for a while but felt the greater exposure, better user experience and ability to release in a less robust state ( ) meant more to me than a few quid. Intruiged to see how the 'Trial' versions idea develops.

70% royalty rate for devs is amazing - free tools, pretty good support, fixed powerful console platform. If you think about it, it is fantastic news - so why do I feel disappointed?

Interesting times ahead though..

[Mark]

I tend to agree. I don't think pro studios will go for this big time - unless they're prototyping in C# already and have games that look like they're not going to make the grade for XBLA. Even then, most would probably see the man-hours needed to get a b-list prototype into releasable condition better spent elsewhere.

It's the inability to release free games that really surprises me. As you say - that looked like the logical first step, and now it's been turned on it's head.

I really don't need the hassle associated with making cash from my stuff - it's a hobby and I just want to make a game or two that people might enjoy. The requirement to charge is an active barrier to entry for me. Luckily, I'm as hopeless at ever at getting anything even remotely shippable, so they'll probably have fixed this by the time I have anything in a fit state for release.

[fog]

Well I hope you guys are right about pro developers not really seeing this as an option. It would be a shame if the image of this as a showcase for true indi, bedroom coder games was diluted by Microsoft blurring the boundaries.

Anyway, does anyone have any updated news on Zune distribution yet?

[PaulCunningham]

Who knows what'll happen now

I think it's Gamefest in the States at the moment though so something may get announced soon.

Probably deploy games to Zune via Steam after purchasing apps from Apple's App Store. Oh and they cost 3000 Wii points.

[Oaf]

XBLA Blobbit ahoy!

Might be worth dusting off that XNA code now

[PaulCunningham]

Gonna try my hand at some conversion work...

http://www.pumpkin-games.net/services.php

I've got my first dev 'signed up'

[fog]

Gonna try my hand at some conversion work...

http://www.pumpkin-games.net/services.php

I've got my first dev 'signed up'

Nice idea Paul. So you think there's potentially more in that than putting your own stuff on XBLCG and charging for it?

TBH working on someone else's idea would drive me mad

[PaulCunningham]

Dunno - I'll suck it and see for a while I guess.

Working on other people's stuff may well drive me mad too They're going to have to be interesting projects for me to want to do it - I'm not going to enjoy converting some typical match 3 type thing for example but I've got to be realistic and target things that folk'll want to buy as well.

I think to continue with my own stuff I'd ideally like to team up, at least with an artist and possibly a sound guy. Most gamers are going to expect a certain level of polish and style and whilst I (and plenty of folk on here) like the simple retro, glow, abstract kind of look I think it's going to require a bit more to stand out and get punters to pay.

[fog]

I think to continue with my own stuff I'd ideally like to team up, at least with an artist and possibly a sound guy.

Well as you may have seen on my forum, the guys that do all my music and most recent sound FX have just set Hybrid Two studios. I don't know any other details yet, but it's worth speaking to Aaron or Mikey.

Anyway let me know when you set the development studio up in New Zealand and I'll join you lol

Most gamers are going to expect a certain level of polish and style and whilst I (and plenty of folk on here) like the simple retro, glow, abstract kind of look I think it's going to require a bit more to stand out and get punters to pay.

I agree, but you think you've got graphical problems? Yours are fantastically polished compared to mine

[PaulCunningham]

XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta now available.

http://creators.xna.com/en-us/news/xnags30beta

Starting today, you can download and try out the new features of the XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta. We encourage you to view our Beta Launch Center which has everything you need to get started with this newest version of XNA Game Studio:

No Xbox support in the beta (as has been the case for all versions so far).

[PaulCunningham]

XNA GS 3.0 out on the 30th October. NXE on the 19th.

http://creators.xna.com/en-us/xna_goes_live_october30th

Bloody typical - I jumped on this pretty much from the start and now I'm going to miss the sodding release as my xbox is all packed away ready to be shipped to the other side of the world - bugger

[Muttley]

3.0 is out.

Downloading now (I'm determined to do something with it this time )

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

3.0 is out.

Downloading now (I'm determined to do something with it this time )

It took an absolute frigging age to install the bugger on Vista...