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Microsoft Announces XNA Studio
simoniker writes "Microsoft has announced XNA Studio at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Based on Visual Studio 2005 Team System, XNA Studio is an integrated, team-based development environment tailored specifically for video game development, and will likely launch as a PC retail product early in 2006. Gamasutra has an interview with XNA's Chris Satchell with more details on what Microsoft sees as a solution for ever-expanding cost and complexity in game development."
These kind of tactics? You mean the horribly unethical practice of offering the kind of tools developers need at price they don't mind paying? Dude, wake the fuck up. MS isn't doing a goddamned thing the fucking SDL developers aren't doing. They're providing a framework. Why should MS do a damn thing that benefits anyone else? THEY ARE A FUCKING BUSINESS. If people don't want to use XNA, get this, THEY DON'T HAVE TO. I don't see Carmack being forced to use D3D, DO YOU?
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
I'd like to see more games based on innovative concepts or gameplay rather than just having better graphics so the sword you are wielding in SoulCalibur 9 has glints of light that look more realistic. I think it is strange that the Myst concept hasn't resulted in more games like that. Personally, the attraction of Myst for me was less the puzzle solving than the attractive visual design, the music, and the story telling.
My point here is that I don't care that MS has started pushing their game writing system. As long as the console business is based on the blockbuster concept borrowed from Hollywood we're going to continue to get more of the same.
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
AlienBrain is shit, slow, and not cost effective. It's a closed system. Its support for binary art resources is poor. It's buggy. Its Visual Studio integration is flimsy. Its licensing is unreasonable.
We switched back to crappy old Visual SourceSafe, and wrote our own resource management tool which took a few months of programmer hours, and eliminated the cost and annoyance of AlienBrain. Sounds like XNA might enable one to further integrate one's own tools to meet one's unique requirements.