~360 Homebrew: XNA Game Studio Express

PaulCunningham · Post by **PaulCunningham** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 8:41 am 0

Microsoft Invites the World to Create Its Own Xbox 360 Games

teamonkey · Post by **teamonkey** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:00 am 0

Just read about this. Fuck me this is ace.

From August 30th XNA Studio Express costs nothing for the PC, but if you want to release stuff for the 360 you need to join the "creators club" for $99/year. I guess that includes hosting and stuff.

Interestingly, Torque Shader Engine is XNA Express-compatible, so if you've got a freeware Torque game it should be a piece of cake to get it running on the 360. Magic!

Post by **Muttley** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:17 am 0

Fantastic news. And hopefully if this is a roaring success (and I see no reason why it shouldn't be) other console manufacturers will rethink how they support up-and-coming bedroom coders.

Muttley

Flabio · Post by **Flabio** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:50 am 0

Quite a brave move as well, allowing people to run arbitrary code on retail hardware...

Have to applaud it, even if it turns out to have odd restrictions on it like Yarouze did.

Post by **Snakey** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:53 am 0

Flabio wrote:Quite a brave move as well, allowing people to run arbitrary code on retail hardware...

Have to applaud it, even if it turns out to have odd restrictions on it like Yarouze did.

I would guess no DVD access, and limited HDD access (much like how XBLA games can only access stuff in their own folder.)

t0ne · Post by **t0ne** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:54 am 0

This is about the first thing that's actually made me interested in a 360

I think it's good news, and hopefully the dev kit will enable you to fully exploit the power of the system and not be restricted in some way.

bloid · Post by **bloid** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:04 am 0

I've been hoping for something like this

In my mind, the model was $50 for the APIs, then $200 to submit a game to the content panel who check the game is worthy, and then a percentage cut of game sales if it passes...

This way seems cheaper

chub · Post by **chub** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 10:56 am 0

I'm curious to see what the difference is between this and Visual Studio + Managed DirectX which has been around for ages now. I use .NET (C#) for my work (not games related), but I have also played around with MDX 1.1 a bit. I know that MDX 2.0 was in beta but was effectively cancelled as it turned into XNA instead.

I suppose the main difference is that it comes with the Torque engine which has been ported to C#, so there's no need to code your own engine. However I'm assuming that you can code whatever you want. I've signed up for the beta so hopefully I'll find out!

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:04 am 0

I'm hoping it's 'less engine building and more game producing', I've been wanting to tinker around with simple game ideas for a long time now but could never really get my head around all the engine building... well, maybe a little but some sort of 3D engine always lost me.

This would be very welcome by me if it is just that.

teamonkey · Post by **teamonkey** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:06 am 0

chub wrote:I suppose the main difference is that it comes with the Torque engine which has been ported to C#, so there's no need to code your own engine. However I'm assuming that you can code whatever you want. I've signed up for the beta so hopefully I'll find out!

E, it doesn't come with Torque (which isn't free) and Torque hasn't been ported to C#. It's just that Torque has been made "XNA Express Ready".

chub · Post by **chub** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:21 am 0

teamonkey wrote:
chub wrote:I suppose the main difference is that it comes with the Torque engine which has been ported to C#, so there's no need to code your own engine. However I'm assuming that you can code whatever you want. I've signed up for the beta so hopefully I'll find out!
E, it doesn't come with Torque (which isn't free) and Torque hasn't been ported to C#. It's just that Torque has been made "XNA Express Ready".

Well...

GarageGames, in collaboration with the Microsoft XNA group, recently ported its full-featured game engine to managed code for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Xbox 360â€¦.. successfully porting a complex suite of game technologies from C++ to C#, .NET, and the XNA Framework

But you're right that it isn't included with the XNA Studio Express. I misunderstood that bit

corrosive · Post by **corrosive** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:24 am 0

Have MS put up a page with details yet? Just find it odd that there's all this noise and no product page (although I may have missed it).

chub · Post by **chub** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:24 am 0

corrosive wrote:Have MS put up a page with details yet? Just find it odd that there's all this noise and no product page (although I may have missed it).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/

teamonkey · Post by **teamonkey** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:28 am 0

@chub: Yeah, you're right. That's weird, I wonder why they ported a C++ engine to C#? AFAIK you don't even need to use .Net for 360 development. Is this a requirement of XNA?

Ah, the FAQ on that site explains it, ta. Better get learning C# then

corrosive · Post by **corrosive** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:51 am 0

chub wrote:
corrosive wrote:Have MS put up a page with details yet? Just find it odd that there's all this noise and no product page (although I may have missed it).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/

Doh. Of course, it'd be at the main XNA site