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Microsoft Announces XNA Game Development Platform
Thanks to GameSpot for its story revealing that Microsoft is unveiling its XNA game software development platform later this morning at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose. XNA is "designed for use with future iterations of all Microsoft game platforms, including Windows, Xbox, and Windows Mobile-based devices" to make simultaneous platform development easier and cheaper, and the company is also expected to announce "Xbox Live-style functionality for billing, security, and matchmaking being made available to Windows developers... [and] the introduction of controllers that are compatible with all Windows and Xbox game players" as part of this move. IGN Xbox has an interview with Microsoft's Jay Allard and Dean Lester which explains XNA as being a cross-platform, evolving toolset that will ensure backwards compatibility, giving the example: "...[if] Adobe was writing an application for Win95, and then WinNT came out there were special features they could take advantages of -- they didn't have to throw it all away and start again." Update: 03/25 00:46 GMT by S : Microsoft has made the official XNA site public, including streaming video from unspecified next-generation games.
It reads interesting. I see it as vaporware. I can't imagine anything useful coming of this. How could something exploit the power of the next gen X-Box (which appears to be using a non-Intel chip in the future), and still run awesome on Windows?
I believe they're going to be using a variant of the G5 PowerPC. Gotta wonder how much that complicates cross-platform development.
If you are speaking "the Queen's English" then it is indeed correct to say "Microsoft are" because in this case "Microsoft" is logically the collective term used to refer to the people who work for the company. Since the nominative is plural, one uses the plural form of the verb.
Of course, we Americans don't usually see the people behind the company name but rather tend to personify the company as an individual rather than a collective, hence we are much more used to hearing "Microsoft IS a bad company" instead of "Microsoft are announcing a new piece of crap..."
To be honest, this sounds rather useful, altho in an unfortunately "only for Microsoft developers" way. Porting apps between consoles and computers takes time, a lot of time, simply because portable toolkits don't exist, yet. Standard sets of game controllers between computers and consoles don't sound bad either, altho those have existed for some time.
Sega used Renderware for Sonic Heroes, and the game looks good(not great, but good) on each platform, PS2, GC and Xbox. Apparently Renderware supports PC also but I don't know more examples.
Renderware is a good thing. The Microsoft solution will only have support for MS platforms (PC, XBox, etc). Renderware may be a better solution, at least for this generation of consoles.
So, it definitely works on the PC as well.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
The chances are better if some off the shelf solutions (e.g. graphics engine) are purchased and not built. Those cost $, though. Sometimes a lot of money. Last time I was involved in an engine evaluation the big hitters (Q3 and Unreal) were upwards of $250,000.00/shipped title. That's almost 10% of the $3 million just for a graphics engine.
$3 million isn't a sufficient amount to get very far into a game these days.
Of course you're surprised because big companies do make game development tools. Even mid-sized companies. EA has a big tools group for everything from sound to graphics. I used to work at a game company (which shall remain nameless) that spent quite a lot of money on tools. The problem was getting the game teams to use them.
Back in 1999, most game developers I knew insisted on writing their own code. Usually badly that would then have to be debugged over the next 2 years. When I left the industry, management had found the mantra that I and my co-workers in Tool development had been preaching for years: standard frameworks and common engines.
You could make an argument that your 3D engine needs to be custom, but you can't make that for a sound events API. I worked on 2 different games, and found their custom written sound libraries implemented the same functionality without any differences. Heck, there were even identical pieces of code in the two ('cause they both copied it from an older game).
The big companies do create tools and frameworks, and it's getting better year by year as more developers "see the light" of common tools and libraries. The big problem is now coming up with better ideas.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
heh. just try to get access to the XBOX development kits if you are Joe Schmoe in a garage. MS tightly controls who can develop and who gets the kits. Unless XNA drastically changes something, you can forget about getting the xbox tools unless you are an established game development house. They have a reason for this, to prevent a deluge of crappy games diluting the platform, but it still means that the statement that they want to see garage shop games is bogus.
from xbox.com
I purchased Halo for the PC, and am patched to the latest version.
What the crap are you talking about with the vehicle buffer/float thing? It just doesn't exist in the game. PC version vehicles behave exactly as they do on the XBox.
And the only time Halo/PC has ever crashed on me was when switching to a super-high resolution (1600x1200) -- which actually turned out to be ATI's fault (drivers.)
Moderation, -1: Parent is full of crap.
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