Microsoft to offer cheap Xbox 360 game development kit? Options

[lantus]

sounds good to me

lets see how it pans out but im really interested in this.

[derived]

What that $100 will likely get is just straight software, without a single cable or anything. Development won't be 360-specific or PC-specific when written, with the XDL doing the porting from one platform to the other when compiled.

I'm guessing that the software won't be the only thing you'd need to write code, acting instead with MS's existing programming software for PCs. In other words, that new $100 package will be a plugin for what is already available.

There would need to be some way of testing what you have compiled, it would be very lame to code something without getting the opportunity to test it.

Xbox 360 retail-signed development kit disc anyone? (ok i'm probably dreaming)

[knepley]

Crappy cyber journalism. They probably don't understand what XNA is. They are probably not talking about an actual hardware XeDK, but rather referring to an $100 package of tools.

BTW lantus: way to pay the bill on your domain son!

[lantus]

my domain is now in the great vapour in the sky..kinda like Fighter, Tokyo Wars and Untamed Rillias

[JimmyGoon]

the price might be right.. but the catch will be that to get anything published, it will likely still need to go through MS approval process of some sort. MS is not gonna let just anyone.. make anything they wish.

What would keep someone from 'accidently' leaving in some bugs...?

Damn, M$ must be very comfortable with their hypervisor and others to think of doing this... if the rumor is true of course.

Crappy cyber journalism. They probably don't understand what XNA is. They are probably not talking about an actual hardware XeDK, but rather referring to an $100 package of tools.

BTW lantus: way to pay the bill on your domain son!

I didn't understand if you knew this or not but XNA is like the new style of programming for games that (at least in the old article from over a year ago said) is compatable with Vista and X360... so... who knows... that would be good enough as long as they offer someway of xfering to the xbox.

Is there anychance they could have a loader.xex that kills support to the DVD drive... aka no more piracy... or MAKE you burn to a DVD and have ResetOnEject...? OR... networked? <- that'd be cool...

[blah101]

im glad there actually going thru with this. i remember billy boy talking about it months ago and i thought it would just be words.. now i can finally start working on something for all you college kids..

msg me if your intrested in helping defintley need some more graphic artist and a few more programmers.. granted this is no halo or anthing big like that and can be finished withink 10 months with about 11 people but would be defintley something nice on the resume if you wanted to get into the industry

kvcd@programmer.net

[JimmyGoon]

Some of what you guys are saying just doesn't make sense..

dev kit =\= (does not equal) pressed DVD's and publishing!

It will probably be some way of doing it at home or something... If MS processed every piece of homebrew that people submitted to them and sent them back a signed dvd... its absurd... you could just incorporate some "bug" to allow for 'true' homebrew or something...

I think people are misunderstanding the news... or heck, maybe I am...

[downlowfunk]

well there was a time when Apple II was everyones fav, why?? because everyone and their brother were making software for it. Could this be the secound coming of the Hobbyist system? Killer retail Titles, the ability to make your own titles, and sell them. Sounds like this could be huge. legitimized Homebrew for a 100 bucks. obvisouly there will be restrictions, but what if no??? Good and interesting times, are abound. All this xbox 360 fever is getting to me, im starting to contemplate putting my third check for the month towards one.

[blah101]

from what i read and are understanding its going to be a Dev-Kit but probably wont have access to live functions and itll be just a standard template for the live function. Also the whole pressed dvd.. ya your DEFINTLEY going to have to submit any peice of code to M$ so they can look @ your code and make sure there is no backdoor at all. Plus there is still going to be the whole thing on where if they dont like your game they may not let you release it or put it on live for downloading. Then if your code is clean and they want your game to be apart of there library there will be more money you have to put out so they can either press dvd's or put it on the marketplace to download it. i will defintley have this as soon as i can. cant wait to see how much i can do with this.

This post has been edited by blah101: Mar 22 2006, 04:24 AM

[krawhitham]

MS will have to let you test your software on the 360 before sending it to MS for inspection. So maybe anyone willing to pay the $100 could run homebrew. Just download the source code and load it on your xbox over the network.

[JaXbox]

I'm thinking a mini-dev-and-debug enviroment, married to your 360, would enable you to test your "homebrew" before somehow getting it signed, and would keep you from releasing the code ??

Regardless - it'll be interesting to see what it's really all about

[Drunkn_Munky]

from what i read and are understanding its going to be a Dev-Kit but probably wont have access to live functions and itll be just a standard template for the live function. Also the whole pressed dvd.. ya your DEFINTLEY going to have to submit any peice of code to M$ so they can look @ your code and make sure there is no backdoor at all. Plus there is still going to be the whole thing on where if they dont like your game they may not let you release it or put it on live for downloading. Then if your code is clean and they want your game to be apart of there library there will be more money you have to put out so they can either press dvd's or put it on the marketplace to download it. i will defintley have this as soon as i can. cant wait to see how much i can do with this.

Do you honestly think MS will be able to thoroughly inspect every bit of homebrew submitted?

It is either bullshit, or it'll be very restricted. It could even just be their version of 'flash' which people found on the Kiosk disk.

[kvajnto]

Since last spring when the Xbox 360 was first announced, one of the biggest concerns was that it would be too expensive for most game developers to create games for the next-generation console.

Do they actually believe that it's the cost of the development kit that's the bottleneck here?

[gasclown]

love the apple 11 analogy^^

This could be really cool. desig yr code, send away to MS, gets verified, they send back the signed xbe, easy. of course youd be bound by a truckload of restrictions on functions. still fun though.

if theyve got no problems distributing burnable legit .xex's they wont have any trouble signing a homebrew that passes verification.

[quall]

Meh, I don't believe that this kit is going to be anything that any hobby dev will find useful. Strictly retail and Indie's (who don't suck) getting into the business.

Probably the only people who will get their game to run on the console are those who have a polished copy on the PC, or at least polished work to show (a.k.a, Anke for the PC platform, created by indies but really well done).