Gamers, Rejoice! Now YOU Can Build Your Own Xbox Games!
Dewd! This is rad! (OK, OK, enough with me trying to be a gamer!) Microsoft annonced a new product that will be a boon to those of you that are gamers… and are creative! They are releasing a tool that will allow you to write your own Xbox games! You can develop them, sell them, trade them, post them to your web sites for folks to download and play… in short, Microsoft hopes that it will develop a whole new game development market with collaboration… like… dare I say it? Open Source? Wow. Who would have thought!?! This was even featured on NPR news yesterday. Zowie! M$ may be making some good moves here. After all, this will definitely add titles to it’s Xbox market!
“Microsoft plans to open up its Xbox 360 game development platform to the masses with the launch of XNA Game Studio Express, due out during the holiday season. The Redmond company says such an offering would benefit the entire gaming industry by nurturing the ideas of new development talent and providing beneficial experience in game creation. Anyone with a Windows XP computer would be able to use the software, available for an annual $99 fee. This fee would permit users to build, test and share their games on Xbox 360 consoles, as well as gain access to development resources. Microsoft says this is the first time novice developers would be able to enter the industry without a large initial investment.”