Microsoft Says PS3 Linux Not 'Competitive' To XNA

nz17 writes "Gamasutra has a preview of its upcoming interview with Dave Mitchell, Director of Marketing for Microsoft's Game Developer Group. In the interview Mitchell dismisses Linux on the PS3 as a game creators' solution and has said, 'What we [at XBox] are focused on doing is providing great tools at a free or low price point that are going to enable consumers to be absolutely successful at creating games for both the Windows and the Xbox 360 platforms.'"

Comments

He may be right

[Blikkie]

Sad as it might sound, he could very well be right. Although linux may be very nice as a development tool, XNA is here and now, and already has hardware access, and is very affordable. No matter how much people may hate Microsoft, this is very possibly a good tool for indie game developers who want to create a console experience.

Re:He may be right

[kjart]

I suppose it depends on want you intend to do with Linux when you get it. Yes you can write games (+ play an enormous number already written), but you could also use Linux for MythTV, VLC, web browsing, email, or any other use imaginable. Where the PS3 Linux sucks is the video driver is a frame buffer, however I believe that if you dedicated a handful of SPUs on the backside of Mesa that the performance would be pretty good.

That's his point - XNA is all about game development and the PS3 thing isn't that focused and isn't really "in the same vein" (to quote the article).

Besides XNA has drawbacks even for writing games. a) It uses .NET, thereby hobbling its performance, b) you have to PAY to publish your games c) You have to PAY to see and play them d) You don't get paid for either. To me it looks more like vanity publishing than a legitimate means of encouraging games development.

Well:
a) There is a fairly impressive demo on what you can do visible in this video from channel9. Performance seems pretty nice to be. Would it be faster if this was all in C/C++? Probably - but this is meant to be widely accessible.
b)Yes, it's a $99 USD a year fee to publish your content to the Xbox right now and only people with a similar subscription will be able to access it. However, according to the article, the sharing of these homebrew creations is one of the things they will be working on. I for one can't wait for the day when I can login to a special section of Xbox live to browse through all the user created games (pretty much suggested at one point in the video I linked to above).
c)See above.
d)I'm sure this isn't far away either. As a developer I would love to be able to create the next killer Xbox arcade game or whatever and be able to sell it for a few bucks on Xbox live. As Microsoft I'd love to be able to have developers doing this so I could take a cut (i.e. as a the publisher, etc) and to drive interest in the console. I can't recall reading about this, but I imagine it must be on the horizon at some point.

Re:He's right...

[Harlockjds]

it's not like developing under linux on the ps3 will allow for 360 and wii development (and it hardly enables ps3 development thanks for the restrictions sony puts on the platform)

I'm developing with XNA right now

[BShive]

I prefer Java/Eclipse personally to C#/VStudio, but XNA seems to be offering a good opportunity for Indies. Other than Beta1 to Beta2 transition, I've been impressed with the XNA team. I loaded my game on to a XB360 earlier this week and it was amazingly painless. A 'duh' issue where some content files were missing, but only had to do a few minor code changes. An hour later my game was running on an Xbox360! It's hard to believe that Microsoft managed to put such a solid product out. They did it with a very small team, which is why it is only VStudio Express and C# are supported right now. It's nothing like the bloated behemoth that Windows OS development has become. Other coolness is that Remote Debugging works, and works well. I've never had remote debug in hardware or software that worked so painlessly. Create the PC-360 link, start debug, play on the 360, and watched variables will update, you can insert breakpoints on the fly, step through, all that jazz without any problems at all.