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Microsoft's Real Plan For XNA Gaming Domination?
h0tblack writes "While many have heard about the XNA 'game software development platform' from Microsoft's announcements at GDC earlier this year, the full scope of their plans are only just becoming clear. Eurogamer has a surprisingly candid interview with J Allard covering the latest plans from Redmond. XNA isn't a rehash of DirectX tools for the Xbox2, PC and WinCE devices after all, it's a full-on assault on the gaming world, with the prize being complete dominance of the market. The site also has a BitTorrent of the interview, since it was originally recorded in video form."
Now is the time, if any, for people to start making games work in Linux as best as possible. If something isn't done soon, all the gaming manufacturers will start building games to work with this system and make them completely unusable in Linux.
Surely MS doesn't want to enable a lot of independent game developers...
...Complete domination is never good for the consumer (at least not often, because competition usually spurs innovation). However, I doubt Microsoft will dominate the video game market that easily. I wonder if it'll lead to better games, at least in the short run?
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
MS always gets portayed as evil for this goal. Sony, Nintendo--they all have this goal. I for one encourage MS, because, in this field, they have the best chance of actually doing it and doing it well. I mean, Nintendo on a PC? Yeah...
Who cares? Most of the truly innovative games were written by people and teams that made their own development system. Heck, SimCity was a development environment -- it started life as the in-house level editor for Raid on Bungling Bay.
The article's author hints that Microsoft's XNA will almost be a "gaming OS". A set of standards that various consumer electronic companies can build consoles for.
This will bring to console gaming the unreliability of the Desktop PC. An often cited benefit Apple has over the PC platform is that it knows its hardware. There are no wild cards. Console game developers have been able to count on this until now. You test and test, on a given company's box and you know your good.
If XNA takes off, look for crashes, due to one Manufacturer cutting corners, or another trying to add a beefier new edition of some chip.
There are some things where standards are great, and being able to commoditize the hardware is a great benefit to consumers. On the other hand gamers, who as a whole have demonstrated a willingness to spend for top of the line systems every few years are probably not looking for a less expensive systems at the cost of quality.
No doubt odds are in favor of something like this winning the mass market. In the mass market, the commodity item always succeeds, VHS over Meta, PC over Mac, etc. _However_, one of the console system may yet survive this if they can succeed in filling a niche in for a superior gaming experience that only a few percent of the market care about and build a fiercly, loyal following. -- Just as Apple Computers exists today.
--Aaron Greenberg
Currently, the PC games market is dying. Too many poor quality and poorly tested games, high cost of entry for decent performance, and low cost of entry for consoles have all taken their toll.
The console markets are flourishing. While there are still many poor quality games, they are fewer in quantity due to the extra cost involved in making console titles available (platform fees, development kits) as well as the certification requirements for each platform.
To be honest, Microsoft establishing a true "base line" for PC's with DXNext/Longhorn, creating a common controller standard and common API's between the Xbox and PC can only help the gaming consumer in the long run.
Currently, the Xbox API's handle several things that are basically "random" on the PC: save game handling, data caching, controller handling, patching, etc. By making those API's available to PC developers, PC gamers will start getting a consistent feel for games (My Saved Games are here; an update is available...BAM! done; I pop a disk in and it only takes up disk space while it's running.)
The PC Live service will most likely require that participating titles certify themselves, similar to how Gamespy works with titles to integrate their service into new titles.
The common controller standard will ensure a base set of functionality, allow controller manufacturers to utilize the same chipset for console and PC controllers (reducing their COGS), and give OSS projects a stable hardware target to support.
Besides, given that the API's will have to be public (ala DX) in order to propogate, it's not like an OSS version of the API's will be that hard to "WINE" about.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
Jesus people! this is competition! It's good that these companies compete. If microsoft blows nintendo and sony out of the console market, then start complaining. last time I checked, both of those companies were still kicking Xbox's ass. I know the idea around here seems to be to bitch whenever microsoft does something, but in this case they're still trying to gain market share, not kick everyone out. I think these complaints are premature.
and no, any replies pointing out how microsoft has taken control of other markets in the past (really only windows and office) are not insightful, they're redundant!
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
WTF? Have you not been paying attention?
Microsoft have been fscking around with DirectX for the last ten years, and it's still a complete mess. It's taken them 25 years to get an OS even remotely as stable as any UNIX variant you'd care to name. And now they're going to Take Over The World with yet another half-assed, rushed-out-the-door collection of hacks?
You'll forgive me if I remain skeptical.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
1) How would it be different from Windows? If it's just a set of standards, protocals, and software that can run on a ton of different types of hardware, how exactly is it different from Windows, or Linux? Is the console release cycle replaced by incremental PC-style upgrades? If so, I'd have to mark that has a huge disadvantage. I do not want to have to upgrade my console system. I don't particularly that every 2-5 years I drop another $150-200 on a new console and peripherals, if I don't have to spend $500 and build an entire machine every several years. The beauty of console systems is that they Just Work, no having to check "system requirements", no driver conflicts, ect. Far from creating a "standard" for developers to follow to improve game stability, ect., they now are encouraged to write code that may run on multiple platforms.
2. Do we really need to play Halo on a cellphone, hand-held game console, PDA and refridgerator? For some games I could imagine that having some functionality/interaction with the actual game would be nice, but I would fear this would become a serious distraction to developers who often seem to have a difficult time just creating a single stable, fun game. Even with a set of "standards" being introduced, it's more work for the developer to build the kitchen sink into their game. I question how many gamers would actually have the time and inclination to take advantage most of these features... is it going to increase sales of games that much? I fear it could eat into developer resources that should be spent creating a good game. It shouldn't be that hard to develop a good game for a three different platforms as long as each of those platforms don't vary in terms of hardware or software configuration at all (as is currently the case.)
3. Do we really trust Microsoft to do a good job? Microsoft has a poor track record for producing stable and secure products. Though I've been skeptical of the idea of trojans, ect. that spread through gaming consoles up until now, I would not be surprised if in several years we saw a worm reap havoc because too many people didn't run "XFS Update" often enough.
4. Is this legal? Microsoft is a monopoly. DirectX is a part of Windows, which is essentially the subject of their monopoly. Outright admitting that they are attempting to dominate the market with a standard that they own, and using their existing "clout" with DirectX, ect. seems to me to raise a few red flags. What I find ironic is the guy talks about the consumers not having a choice--since when has that ever been a concern of Microsoft's? And I do think I have a coice. For console systems, I can choose a GameCube, or a PlayStation 2, or an X-Box. On any of those systems I can choose from a multitude of games from a multitude of developers. Or I can choose to game on a PC (which I can build myself or buy from any number of OEMs), running Windows or Linux. Or I can choose to game on a Mac. Is this not choice? If a substantial number of these options were replaced by XNS, just how is my choice broadened? I do not understand.
Not really trying to be a Microsoft basher, but I'd be expressing some serious doubts even if it were Nintendo (and I'm something of a fanboy) proposed something like this. The fact that it's Microsoft makes me even more skeptical.
To all the arguments about XNA enabling porting, here's my 2 pence.
/. messed up my account pw and refuses reset it :'(
Have you ever tried compiling the same VC++ code for more than one platform? Do you know how much a pain in the a$$ it is to do anything of that sort? It is tough enough porting something from the PC to a Pocket PC - I wonder how they will do this for "Handhelds, desktop PCs, laptop PCs, airport terminals, mobile phones, PDAs, the list goes on".
Hell, devices that used to work fine in 98 and 2k don't even work on XP any more. Same goes for WinCE->Pocket PC->Pocket PC 2002->Pocket PC 2003 or VC++ 6.0 -> VS.Net 2002->VS.Net 2003 or Office 97->Office 2000->Office XP->Office 2003, "the list goes on".
On the other hand, look at what independent hackers have done with Linux. As soon as a new platform comes out, there is a band of hackers working on getting linux running on it. And guess what? You can actually compile the same old code that you wrote 5 years ago for libc5 on uCLinux - just change the linked libraries!!
Many companies have gotten smart to that fact and are actually doing a lot of development for the linux platform - I hope more product planners realize that and start releasing device drivers for Linux (and making their specs open). It has been proved time and again that opening up specs and letting the user tinker with a product ends up ensuring the survival of the product even if the company dies. Hail Free Knowledge (not as in beer) !!
- Rudrava Roy
PS: The post is as Anon Coward cuz
Renderware is billed as a "universal game engine", more or less. Actually, it's the physics engine from Mathengine, an AI engine from Knyogon, a rendering engine, and an audio engine, which more or less play together. There's also a generic level editor, a build tool, and a configuration management system for all the game assets. All the major target platforms are supported.
In general, none of those components are considered the best in their class. When you look at the titles supported, you don't see any of the top 10 games. But there are time-to-market advantages in buying them all your tools from one vendor. That's the sort of thinking that attracts Microsoft.
So if you want to see what XNA would be like, check out Renderware.
"The first thing we've learned about Xbox in this dimension is that the average number of rooms in Xbox visits is about 1.85, meaning that a kid will bring it down to the big screen TV when his dad's on a business trip for a week, or bring it over to their mum's house for the weekend or his friend's house for a sleepover, so the console moves."
Going to put on my Microsoft-is-evil hat here and ask, how the heck do they know this? A possibility: when connecting to xbox live, it sends the id of the box along with which video connections you are using. Jimmy's xbox was using analog video yesterday, now it's connected on component video, he must have changed to his dad's plamsa screen.
1.85 rooms... what a bizarre stat to pull out of your ass and throw out there.
Once again, this Microsoft representative is touting choice of hardware platform as a primary advantage of XNA. But in the past Microsoft have also claimed that Windows gives the customer the choice, which is obviously a blatant lie in the same context.
But imagine for a second if Microsoft really did end up getting something like XNA standardised. Then we might see implementations of it on other platforms, even if such implementations are technically illegal (think MP3.) It would make game development cheaper again, and knock-offs of the development environment for these standard games might even open up the market for hobby game development again, which has been more or less shut off for years.
The idea is intriguing but I can't see Microsoft successfully implementing what it looks like they're describing. I suspect that at best, they will tie the damn thing to Direct3D, and everything will fall apart from there.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Wasent the MSX standard in Japan just this - a set of standards that companies could build their game- system to play MSX cartridges.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I don't think open source should steal OpenGL. There is already a legal problem with SCO because of this. I don't see how stealing stuff from OpenGL makes it easier for open source to gain any marketshare. Open source developers, I mean the Slashdot users here, should start development right now with a good plan. I believe that since Linux took 8-10 years to mature and become a serious competitior to Windows 95, I think Slashdot users can easily develop something with 5 years and can compete with DirectX. As we all know open source model is a great model for these projects, it will be quite secure and I am sure open source will take over the world. Everybody loves open source, and Slashdot users are the best programmers I have ever seen in my life.
Online games are huge but usually equire enormous time commitment. [...] If you play occasionally you either get your butt kicked all the time or you can't keep up with your friends.
I'm having exactly that experience in FFXI (which, FWIW, isn't as bad as others since it doesn't have general PvP). To be honest, most of the reason I still play at all is because of friends who also play--even if I can't play with them, I can pretend the game doubles as an IRC client and chat with them while I play with others. And as long as the monthly fee is low enough, it's ignorable, at least for those of us with stable incomes.
Which is why I think there's still room for at least a few more online games. Certainly, any one player will only play a couple of online games at most, but just like there are gazillions of IRC networks and multiple IM networks, different people will be interested in different games.
(That said, I still don't think online games are the ultimate form of gaming--though I have to admit getting kids to interact with other people through online games is probably better than having them playing alone . . .)
How can so many people say "gaming is dead"? Are you that ignorant? Gaming revenues have been going up exponentially for the past 3/4ths of a decade, surpassing the movie industry long ago, and getting bigger and bigger. While over the past couple of years we have seen the game industry try to produce massive numbers of titles that lack quality, (they are exploring the market) it is certainly going the other way, right now. Look at upcoming games....RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 will be the first truly good one of the series, Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 are coming out, MMORPG's are becoming mainstream, and more. To say gaming is dead, or even dying, is just stupid. Idiotic to say that PC gaming is dead or dying, too - PC's will be able to run games in a superior manner across the board forever, due to the nature of consoles and computers. Looking at what MS is doing with this, they of course are the first ones to see it - games will all be made for the PC, then ported to consoles. It is the easiest way....you program the best graphics, sound, everything for PC games, then you can downscale for consoles. Think this through, people. Microsoft will become huge in this arena, and everyone will bitch about them having a monopoly, because they were smart enough to see where things were going. Sound like a familiar history lesson? :)
Why not? They took over the PC world with Windows. I don't see why this approach won't work, they seem to have it all figured out.
Windows didn't have to be the best, it had to be good enough at what it does, just like a weed. It moves into a new market, reproduces itself like crazy, strangles any incumbents using whatever means available, then consolidates and preserves the new environment for sustained dominance and access to even more markets.
They did it with desktop OS's, they did it with server OS's, they're doing it with gaming (consider Micrsofts console market position 3 years ago compared to today). Why can't they keep pushing into this new market?
I'm not sceptical at all. I've seen the evidence. This has every chance of success. And to be honest, implementation aside the vision actually sounds pretty good.
The question is, will the open source movement be able to adapt to rival microsoft in this space? Will there be XNA compatible toolsets? Or will they do the same thing they did with DirectX and hold their collective hands over their ears and repeat "I'm not listening!"?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
This isn't a troll, it seems pretty legitimate. I never owned a mac myself but from the macheads I've spoken to there have been some excellent games for Mac and the Mac had nothing stopping it from being a worthy and powerful gaming platform.
Microsoft invested in the gaming market quite heavily with DirectX, and DirectX has made PC gaming very uniform and broad reaching, so developers don't have to know what kind of sound card there is and they don't have to know what kind of graphics card there is, the API's just pull everything together. (Remember old DOS games where you had to punch in the IRQ details for your sound card?)
Is it true that Apple didn't help out games developers enough? Or is the parent really a troll? If so, why hasn't gaming been bigger on the Mac?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
To a developer, easy cross-platform compatibility is great. But compatibility among platforms in different markets is priceless.
I love free stuff. If I can get cross-platform development for free (or close), I'll take it. The ability to create a substantial application and have it run well on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux means I can reach a greater audience. But what XNA promises is almost impossible to resist: the ability to develop a substantial game that runs on your desktop, in your livingroom, and on your keychain -- three large markets that do not directly compete.
Applications drive an operating system; a stack of exceptional programs give consumers a reason to buy your OS. A complaint I've long had with Palm is that they haven't made it easier to develop for Palm OS. Microsoft gives its development environment away for free. In fact, it's possible to develop simple games concurrently for Windows Desktop and Pocket PC. If XNA can make it possible for a small studio such as mine to develop our more complex offerings concurrently for Windows and Pocket PC, will I care about Palm OS, Mac OS, or Linux?
What I'd like to see from companies such as Apple and PalmSource are environments like Torque, which makes it possible to write for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux by abstracting each environment. But Torque is really an ad-hoc solution (in both senses of the term); it's not a hollistic system, and it's not supported by the OS vendors. Though an awkward combination, if it were possible to develop substantial applications for Mac OS, Palm OS, and Windows, I might. But if XNA allows me to develop substantial applications for Windows, Pocket PC, and the Xbox concurrently -- three different, juicy markets -- that's even better.
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
Well that's a little out of context. This whole topic is about gaming, and therefore Linux's success in gaming. I suggest, in order to make this more useful for you, that gaming has a spill on effect into new markets.
To a small extent, the success of games on Windows has put a lot of Windows PC's into the home, and by extension of familiarity, a lot of Windows PC's on managers desks and throughout companies.
Apple tries very hard at the same tactic - ever wonder why there are so many Macs in schools? Because Apple practically gives them away there.
If Linux was the premiere gaming OS, and only lamerz used Windows for gaming (not the case at the moment), Linux proliferation in single PC families would dramatically increase. Imagine if 80% of homes with PC's were running Linux, because the best gaming experience was on Linux. We can then also imagine a change in the reputation of Linux in other PC industries.
I suggest, then, that Linux would experience more success than currently if it were a better gaming platform.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
The problem I have is with the game companies themselves because making money from games and having a constant supply of good quality games are mutually exclusive.
For starters, I don't understand why there is a necessity to constantly re-invent the wheel and create gaming engines from scratch just about each time a new game is released. Surely it would be better to throw out the source code to current gaming engines to the Internet community to see what enhancements get added as a result - sure, keep the level design, textures, etc. for a specific commercial game that uses that engine under wraps so that, as a game company, you can make money from it.
One advantage that consoles have over a PC is that developers for a console platform must constantly "push the envelope" to get the console to do more and more as time goes on - this, in turn, creates better, more efficient coding. On the PC, the expectation is that users simply upgrade hardware to meet the requirements of a new game, no games developers get long enough with a particular, say, graphics chipset to fully understand what they can get it to do and, as a result, we, the end users, end up with sloppily coded games that need constant upgrades to get them to work properly.
My point is that we need a return to the good old days of the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum & Amiga when it was possible for "bedroom programmers" to create good quality games. Sure, games were much smaller then but that's why game development environments like XNA, SDL, etc. exist now in order to cut down the development times. What would really put games development back into the hands of single programmers or small groups of game designers, is having access to the core engines as well so that the most important aspect of game design, the initial good idea for a game design, can become tangible much easier.
Incidentally, I don't, for one minute, expect this to happen because there are far too many concerns about making money (which is why money and good games are mutually exclusive in my view) but it would be good to see the games buyers become a lot more discerning when it comes to purchasing games.
Sure, we all own games that we feel were worth the money and that provide us with good entertainment but I guarantee most game players have spent far more money on disappointing games than good ones.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
You would expect XNA to be middleware engine by all the hype surrounding it ... but bringing out an engine is a dangerous proposition, since you are treading on developers feet.
Only Sony has committed to shipping a middleware engine. XNA is just some assorted libraries and tools you can use to build an engine, but in and of itself it is nowhere near.
For instance, Splinter Cell. Playable on console, unplayable on PC. You had to click a mouse button to go forward.
WHere did you get that from? I only played through Splinter Cell last month, and you certainly didn't have to hold down a mouse button to move. Can't say I had any problems playing with keyboard + mouse, it all felt pretty natural to me.
Completely wrong. From the article, the guy reckons he wants people like Panasonic and Teac and whoever else to start making XNA compliant gaming platforms. Microsoft are obviously not trying to sell more XBoxes here. It's something different.
This fits in with Microsoft, who, despite their continual involvement, do not want to be a hardware company. They're making a loss on the XBox just to get a major foothold in the gaming industry, we've known this for a while.
The interesting thing is that we haven't seen exactly what the long term goal of Microsoft is with the gaming market. Now we can see. They want a stranglehold, and they're doing embrace and extend.
Stage 1: Xbox and XBox 2. Sell these puppies at a loss. Everyone gets a pretty good console (at least equivalent to the next in the market) for next to nothing. Everyone is using XBox. (Not yet achieved but getting there). A Microsoft device in every home, as it were.
Stage 2: XNA. Make all the gaming platforms interdependent through a Microsoft controlled set of standards. Market penetration is immense, especially because we assume XNA runs all the old DirectX games plus all the new XNA exclusive titles (see how many gaming franchises MS owns nowadays?). Consumers love choice. Websites will be contrasting Panasonic XNA consoles to Alienware XNA PC's to Nokias new XNA gamephone, all of which run the latest GTA, Evercrack, Counterstrike, Doom, EA sportsgames, everything. Microsoft on every gaming device in every home.
Stage 3: Control. Just like every other market MS has controlled, kill the competition, embrace, extend, litigate, leverage, and stretch the law as hard as it goes to keep picking up royalties and license fees for XNA and XNA licensed platforms.
Genius, if you ask me. Evil perhaps, but there's a reason Bill Gates can drop $1000 on the ground and not pick it up because he makes more money by ignoring it for the whole time it would take to bend over.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Sony really, really need to do something about the quality of their tools. I've spent the last two years on a game that runs on the XBox and PS2. The XBox tools are just amazing -for example you can click on a pixel and see a dissasembly of the shader that produced it.
:(
The Sony tools are hideous. Well, the debugger has a nice graphical frontend provided by a third party and is fairly slick and fast compared to Visual Studio, but the compiler and libraries provided are terrible - a patched up gcc 2.9.5 which has a prediliction for internal errors when the array indexing operator [] is used creatively , and that doesn't always optimise away empty constructors. And the libraries provided - at least initially were slow, and crufty and not suitable for game use. At least now, two years after the release of the PS2, Sony provides some decent middleware.
They MUST get developer tools right from the off with the PS3 - especially if it has 8 CPU's. I really, really hope they do. I'd hate to see my market swallowed by the Beast. At present it's economical to develop for the PS2 without needing a single Windows liscence. I hope it stays that way
/usr/games/fortune > ~/.signature
Sorry, I wasn't aware that the Xbox was actually doing well in some places. I live in Japan, where the Xbox is selling about as well as, say, cowpies. The most recent sales data I found was here; the PS2 and GBA are running about neck-and-neck, both beating the Xbox by about a factor of 100 (yes, one hundred). In recent weeks the Xbox is facing a serious challenge from the PSOne.
So maybe Microsoft can establish an American standard, but no way are they in shape to take on Sony here.
The reason that a SMALL group of games developers port their games to Linux can be summed up as follows:
Ease of porting + side benefits + potential of market.
Porting a game not using directx is relatively easy, especially if you are a experienced game developer.
Side benefits range from more people having servers, goodwill, experience gained from actually doing the port.
Potential of market is the fact that the games developers dont see linux as a market right now, but they recognize the potential, and when (if) linux gaming goes somewhere, they want to have the expertise and experience to port games to the linux platform very quickly.
Well, the PC gaming industry is in an unfortunate rut - because of the incredibly huge amount of wheel-reinventing it takes to make a game, the cost of development has risen to astronomical levels. While MS can't help with the labour it takes to make an acceptable model these days, they can try and expand into the engine and middleware level, taking some of the programming difficulty out.
Of course, the heterogeneity of hardware in PCs is one of the cheif draws, in my opinion. While the mainstream blockbusters focus on keyboard and mouse, there are extensive lists of games focused on flightsticks, VR headsets, and other equipment.
Still - this might be a good example for Linux gamedevs to follow - we need a single-package distribution of a gamedev platform to put all the Linux crap together. Right now its all over the place, and each platform has a half-assed implementation of each other platform. O.S. games are absolutely terrible at supporting joysticks, for example.
My wet dream is a real, full-featured, modern O.S. middleware gaming engine. -ogg and s3m for music, a stripped-down python interpreter for script, ogl for 3d, semi-transparent networking, and in-engine design tools, and a nice auto-downloading filesystem using http references right in the package names so downloading is from the package-maker and not bogging down the server on which you're playing.
Sony is a Japanese company. Nintendo is a Japanese company. For all they have international branches, you damn well better believe the Japanese market still has importance.
If anything, I'd say Microsoft is tapping the market of people who don't play the kind of games available on the Sony/Nintendo(/Sega) systems, so I doubt Sony or Nintendo have anything to worry about anyway. I have no problem with Microsoft going after their own market. After all, the majority of games released on Japanese consoles have been from Japanese publishers--who tend to publish with a Japanese audience in mind--so if Microsoft can get its hands on Western publishers, I wouldn't be surprised if its games were more widely accepted in the West.
I dislike microsoft so much because of they way they changed my licensing agreements, that I don't care what they invent, They have screwed me so much in the past I will never buy another microsoft product. Go Debian !