XNA Studio Interview

GamingNexus writes "GamingNexus is running an interview with Chris Satchell from Microsoft on their upcoming XNA Studio developer suite for game developers. It talks about the differences between the XNA Studio and the upcoming version of Visual Studio 2005 (which it's based on) as well as how it will support all phases of the gaming development lifecycle (including artists and project managers."

Comments

marketing jackass

[alatesystems]

I hate marketing jackasses. A few choice quotes:

XNA Studio will speed development time and decrease development costs by delivering an advanced build framework and a suite on integrated tools to solve common production challenges.

...and allows programmers to leverage the skills...

...development processes and will ship with process support for Agile Software Development.

Our focus with XNA studio is to deliver the incredible productivity and collaboration services...

...integrated pipeline to streamline data and content

What a jackass.

Re:marketing jackass

[GameSlave]

don't know if you saw the MS Keynote Speech @ the GDC, but it was pretty much the same thing.. alot of marketing-jargon and how they plan on selling more xbox2 units as opposed to just making good games that are fun. jackasses.

Re:marketing jackass

[FidelCatsro]

A freind of mine who works in marketing , a wise man , one of the old breed of marketing .
He said something to me once and it is the only thing a marketing guy has said to me about his profesion that i have ever agreed with , he said "We are a bunch of arseholes , profesionaly that is".Gave me a good laugh

Re:marketing jackass

[tc]

Actually, I wouldn't describe Chris Satchell as a marketing jackass. I happen to know Chris personally, and his background is as a games programmer (you know, actually writing code). He's worked his way up through the ranks, and is now a general manager at Microsoft (deservedly so, in my opinion).

Having said that, I'm definitely going to give him some shit about that interview, because I was drowning in all the buzzwords...

Re:marketing jackass

[oGMo]

I happen to know Chris personally, and his background is as a games programmer (you know, actually writing code). He's worked his way up through the ranks, and is now a general manager at Microsoft (deservedly so, in my opinion).

So... is this is a good thing or a bad thing?

Re:marketing jackass

[MrScience]

Disclaimer: I do work for Microsoft, though I don't agree with everything they do. I'm not a game developer, though I aspire to be one, and have been following XNA closely.

XNA Studio will speed development time and decrease development costs by delivering an advanced build framework and a suite on integrated tools to solve common production challenges.
Sounds fine to me. XNA has a toolset that allows you to configure/optimize projects, with tools thrown in tha address problems that frequently come up in production environments.

...and allows programmers to leverage the skills...
Developers used to Visual Studio can get started faster. Ever try to switch from Paint Shop Pro to Photoshop to Gimp? 3D Studio Max to Maya to Lightwave? This is not a toothless problem.

...development processes and will ship with process support for Agile Software Development.
So the tools support the Agile Software Development process. Why, specifically, is Test-Driven-Design, eXtreme Programming, Feature Driven Development, and other tenants bad? Besides their names. :)

Our focus with XNA studio is to deliver the incredible productivity and collaboration services... ...integrated pipeline to streamline data and content
Again, why is this bad? The whole point is that different groups aren't working together quickly enough.

I honestly don't see what was wrong with these sound bites. Remember... managers are the ones that make the purchasing decisions... I don't blame him for using a bit of management lingo (especially when the words concisely convey the intent of XNA).

How about some other sound bites?

...We didn't invent all the ideas going into XNA studio; we talked to the community...

...We only succeed if we solve game development problems and make developers more productive...

...XNA Studio is for all members of the game production team from artists to designers to programmers to producers to QA...

...One of the main pieces of work we are doing is making the collaborative services available in a form that is natural to these other roles and it could take many forms: small stand alone clients, direct integration with the major DCC tools etc...

Re:marketing jackass

[DarkGamer20X6]

I have a friend that works for Microsoft, too. Really brilliant guy. Anyway, from what I'm given to understand (and you may have more insight into this than I do), this kind of stuff happens a lot with their employees. I think employee morale is really important to Microsoft; they want everyone to be really psyched up and feel good about the projects they work on.

I certainly agree with the sentiment, but I also think it goes too far too often. I've seen my friend get caught up in the buzzwords, and I'm like, "Chris... (My friend's name is Chris, too), can you tone down the marketing a bit? I think I just heard the programmer inside you cry."

Re:marketing jackass

[urbaer]

I hate marketing jackasses.

I hate interviewers who ask the questions that the person who is being interviewed wants to answer.

GamingNexus: What are some of the praises from developers already using XNA? What are some of the negatives?
Chris Satchell: We continually get great feedback from developers... Developer love PIX... developers really appreciated... continually get feedback on how easy it is...

Where were the negatives? Gee whiz, he didn't seem to answer that part of the question. Wonder why.

I don't really see the point of a site that is already gushing about a product interviewing the developer of said product. Just put up a press release and be done with it. I'm not sure how it adds anything. Maybe I'm being to harsh...

Re:marketing jackass

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you talked to him lately? He's changed a lot since he joined the platform team. From J's ass to Chris's mouth. "HD era", indeed.

Re:marketing jackass

[pommiekiwifruit]

I thought Xbox2 was getting rid of the Hard Disk anyway...

Is this an _interview_?

[johannesg]

I'm asking because it sounds like one long marketing speech...

Re:Is this an _interview_?

[mcslappy]

it might just be me, but it also sounds a little desperate.

Part of MSDN

[samsmithnz]

I'd be interested to hear if it will be part of my MSDN subscription or not. It sounds like it will be Visual Studio.NET with a couple more tools/ add ins....

Re:Part of MSDN

[JAgostoni]

I doubt it. Microsoft is creating several levels (or even sub-levrls) of MSDN subscriptions now that are geared toward your role. No longer will you have complete and full access to all of their products. You will only have access to products that fullfill your role (or the role for which you paid).

What that means is that I am assuming that there will be a MSDN Universal Game Developer license that will include XNA Studio but the MSDN Universal Software Architect will probably not.

I can dig up a link of you really want me to that provides evidence towards their different levels.

bmp editing

[alexandreracine]

as well as how it will support all phases of the gaming development lifecycle

What? It's gonna use paint for the graphics?

Re:bmp editing

[drspliff]

I think one of their main features will be a UI interface to bin2h :)

On the other hand, there is a couple of ways they can innovate, or just copy all the work done by previous companies.

For example, Metroworks Studio (i think) for the Playstation, gameboy, gba (and lots of other consoles/handhelds) is probably the kinda thing their going for. It's an IDE with a load of stuff like a fairly decent sprite editor, encoders and tools for native formats to the target (which in microsofts case would be .x, and probably a framework to work with other model formats).

I guess their just trying to supply the glue between various different programs and tools to help people work more effeciently..

Why people can't just write commandline tools, hack up their makefiles (or... EWW.. the Visual Studio Pre/Post build tasks..) that do stuff that would be useful.. Such as adding random burns/scratches/craters to materials, vising and lighting maps etc.

Personally GNU make fulfills all my needs, re-compiles my maps when I change them, ensures a CVS sync when I start and stop working and manages performing a variety of actions on a whole load of different files...

Standard tools already manage the whole pipeline, a UI just adds more bloat and overhead into the mix! Don't get me wrong, there are quite a few really nice features in Visual Studio 2003/2005.. but there are already a heap of very good editors out there that can do the same job and integrate with the way I work, not they way they want me to work. (such as Slickedit, CRISP, Code Forge etc.)

Call me a zealot, call me a troll, but there are some valid arguments in there... somewhere :)

Blah blah blah blah....

[bersl2]

I see a mouth moving, but no meaningful words are coming out. Strange...

Asset management

[Scorchio]

Every time XNA studio is discussed, they mention how it's going to incorporate asset management and project tracking utilities. Annoyingly, they're often short on details as far as what exactly this entails.

As a programmer, one of the difficulties I've regularly faced is finding the art resources I need to complete my tasks. At some point, the art and programming schedules split, and each group ends up shuffling scheduled tasks in order to deal with unforeseen problems, last minute demos and all the usual fun. What frequently happens when I get a task requiring art assets, is that I need start running around the building on the asset chase:

a) Find the lead programmer/programming manager to find where the assets should be.
b) If the asset location is not known, find the lead artist/art manager and see if they know where the asset is, if it's been completed yet according to the art schedule, and which artist is responsible for creating that asset.
c) Find the artist responsible to find where the asset is located, or the current status if they're still working on it.

It seems to me that there is potential for a centralised schedule and asset tracking system, so that I can immediately check for a programming task what resources (art, audio and/or design) that task depends on, who is scheduled to create those resources and the current status. This works both ways, too - an artist may be waiting for a particular software component to be written before they can see how a bitmap or mesh looks using that component. I've regularly heard complaints along the lines of "I started doing x two months ago, but I needed y to finish; no-one told me y was completed five weeks ago".

I'm interested to see if this is the sort of thing that XNA studio will provide, or if there's still a niche open. Or does anyone have a similar system already in use?

Re:Asset management

[Anonymous Coward]

AlienBrain does exactly this.

Re:Asset management

[Scorchio]

Ah, interesting. Alienbrain was evaluated a couple of times in the past few years by the company I used to work for. I think the problem was that they were looking at it from the point of view of finding an alternative to Visual SourceSafe. While Alienbrain does provide version control, it seems to do much more than that - in fact, it looks like everything I was looking for!

I think one of the main reasons it was turned down was the price tag. The initial costs to shift the studio over to use Alienbrain were huge. I'm wondering if whoever evaluated it realised what the true strengths were. It will be interesting to see if XNA studio is attempting something similar.

Oh, and Subversion proved a worthy successor to VSS... :)

More Windows Lockin

[HogynCymraeg]

Undoubtedly, this studio will be running windows only libraries, IE Direct X or whatever it's called these days. This is daft in this day and age as there are fantastic crossplatform libraries that enable you to target multiple platforms. I recently bought "Darwinia" (which is an absolutely fantastic game!) and noticed that they had done a linux version. The installer asked for the game CD and off we went! I checked the libraries and they used SDL, vorbis, PNG and a few others.

suxx0rs

[M.C. Hampster]

Yes, I wrote about the changes they seem to be making to MSDN subscriptions in this JE.

It really ticks me off the the MSDN Universal subscription was described as including all the latest and greatest developer tools and now that they are coming out with some really great tools, they are going to stop including them.

Re:suxx0rs

[JAgostoni]

What ticks me off is the fact that you aren't getting a discount or anything either. I understand that they are trying to puch their team services as a server product (like BizTalk, CS, MCMS, etc.) but they should at least have good discounts for getting less usage out of your subscription. Oh well ... it's good to work for a Gold Certified partner!

Features?

[Elranzer]

Only gonna be a matter of time before the game developers notice that "File->Port to PlayStation3" and "File->Port to Revolution" are mysteriously grayed out. Unless they activate with a unique and valid serial number, you know?

bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is marketing bullshit.

It's their way of forcing people to use their horrible middleware APIs because right now nobody does it and they're getting desperate.

Who uses XFont? Nobody, it sucks.

Who uses XACT (buggy crap) when there is Miles (working, better quality)

Who uses XMV (buggy slow crap) when there is Bink (working, better quality)

The list could go on forever.

FAQ: XNA

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: What is XNA?

A: XNA is a marketing term invented by Microsoft to try to divert attention away from their pathetic and weak hardware design for the Xbox2/360/Xenon.

Q: Will XNA make my colors brighter and my whites whiter?

A: Yes.