I understand Intel and nVidia resenting that their next gen chips were not selected for the 360, but not allowing the old chips to be used? Maybe I'm old fashioned, but it seems like some profit is better than no profit.
Apparently Intel and nVidia were dumped in favor of IBM and ATI because the former would not release their IP to Microsoft. The upshot of this is that Microsoft could not take advantage of economies of scale to reduce prices (thus no Xbox-on-a-chip, without which it's impossible to include the old hardware in a new console). At the same time, at least nVidia was unwilling to lower their licensing costs. To them, it was either all of the pie or none of it, rather than at least getting some slice rather than no slice at all. It actually got to the point of legal action, though the two apparently settled out of court.
And given their symbiotic relationship in the PC arena, you'd think they would have been able to work something out for the console.
The relationship has always seemed more adversarial than symbiotic, at least to me.
It doesn't need to push the hardware particularly hard, but if it's the only game using that particular engine Microsoft may think they're getting more bang for their buck by focusing on games using some common component.
On the other hand, JSRF was one of the pack-in games for a good 2+ years of the Xbox's life. You'd imagine that there are a large number of copies out there that people may want to play.
And on the other, other hand, only the Emulation Ninjas (yes, that's their job titles. No, really, it is) know what's keeping JSRF from being emulated. Is it demand? Lack of disks to test with? Insurmountable functional problems? Tricky problems that have been under-prioritized because they're not seen in any other game and they'll get more bang for the buck by focusing on other problems? There's no way for us to know.
Which two? What other games do you have? Are you sure they're not supported? The BC list has something like 200-250 games on it now, and while there are still some big-name games missing (the second and third Prince of Persia games, for example), it does cover a fair amount of popular games (which, BTW, is what Microsoft said they were going to do). It also covers some silly or bad games (Barbie Horse Adventure, Aquaman), but those are by-products of making other games work. The emulation team will work on getting something popular to work, like Halo, and then find that all of that work allows Barbie Horse Adventure to work as well.
If you're trying to make the point that out of the box the 360 only supports Halo and Halo 2, then your point is moot. If you are connected to Live, you'll automatically get the updates. If you're not on Live, you can download an ISO and burn your own CD with the updates. If you can't burn a CD, you can order a CD for a nominal shipping charge (I think it's $5) to get the latest updates. Now you'll have to go through this process every time there's a new BC update, but there's no point in updating unless there's new support for a game you want to play.
Boo on MS, and I am afraid what PS3 and Wii has in store.
Obviously you haven't been following this, or you'd already know.
The PS3 is backwards compatible with PS2 (though there are some games with problems, the PS3 essentially includes a PSTwo Slimline-on-a-chip). It's not longer backwards compatible with PS1 games (which were only backwards compatible on the PS2 thanks to a PSOne-on-a-chip). Instead you get to re-purchase your PS1 games this time around so you can play them on your PSP. Like the Xbox 360, your old PS2 peripherals won't work with your new PS3.
The Wii is 100% compatible with the Gamecube because it's essentially the same hardware running at higher clock speeds. Put in a Gamecube disk and the Wii turns into a Gamecube (to the point of telling you to close the lid if you hit the eject button, even though the Wii has a slot loader rather than a top loader). The Wii has the same 4 controller ports and 2 memory card ports as a Gamecube, and in fact you must use those for Gamecube games (no saving GC games on the internal flash, or playing GC games with the Wiimote).
The Wii's backwards compatibility support is new to Nintendo in the console world (handhelds are a different story). There was no compatibility story between the NES and SNES, the SNES and the N64, or the N64 and the GC. In fact it wasn't until the PS2 that a console had a built-in backwards compatibility mode (well, ignoring older atari consoles that were largely ignored due to the market crash, and Master System/Genesis compatibility via external hardware since the external hardware was essentially an SMS that used the Genesis' controller input and A/V output). The only reason BC was important on the PS2 was due to a lack of good games during the PS2's first year. Yes, it's convenient to be able to play older games on your new console. Yes, some hardcore gamers will buy a PS2 solely to play PS1 games. No, not having BC is not a death sentence. In fact by skipping BC, a console manufacturer is often able to make bigger advancements generation over generation.
A year into a console's life, nobody cares about BC anymore. At least Microsoft is still releasing updates for their BC emulation.
According to Microsoft, such a license is viral and should be avoided.
That only applies to Microsoft-provided Distributable Code (ie, code from Starter Kits or samples). You should probably quote the full thing next time ("For any Distributable Code you distribute, you must..."). If you don't want to continue to protect the code they're graciously giving you at least as well as they're doing themselves, then don't use their code. You can start a game from scratch rather than starting with Spacewars or XNA Racer.
I can see how this would be a great way to bridge the gap between PC and Console games. The game that I'd really like to see the light of day is Shadowrun Online.
Just two problems here:
XNA doesn't support any network functionality yet. You should be able to work around this with normal.NET functionality on Windows, but the.NET framework on Xbox doesn't expose networking. I'd expect this functionality to make it into XNA in a future release, though.
FASA is already doing Shadowrun as a cross-platform game, though it's being done as a FPS. Using the Shadowrun property in your own game is a quick way to get Foxed by Microsoft, especially since they now have a Shadowrun game in development. Had you started a few years ago you might've gotten away with it, like the Halogen guys, before they got Foxed because of the upcoming Halo Wars RTS. If you're really going to do something like this, you need to create your own content. It can be stylistically based on Shadowrun, but stay away from anything that is obviously from Shadowrun (you might even need to be careful about the game mechanics, if you try to implement the pen-and-paper rules).
That's a moot point. XNA Studio is not a proper dev kit.
Correction: XNA is not a retail Xbox 360 game dev kit. With V1, it's a hobbyist kit with which you can create games that other hobbyists (defined as "Xbox Live Gold or Silver subscribers with a Content Creator's Club subscription") can play. Expect that to change in later versions as the XNA team works out distribution arrangements on the Marketplace.
You CAN'T develop real games with such licensing restrictions.
I just installed the RTM release (I had been using Beta 2). I took the liberty of copying the EULA just to make sure we're all on the same page. As I read it, there are two interesting clauses.
First, Windows games (sorry for the bad formatting, but this is how it copied out of the installer into Notepad):
a. Programs developed for the Windows platform
i. Distributable Code. The software contains code that you are permitted to distribute in programs you develop for the Windows platform only, if you comply with the terms below.
A. Right to Use and Distribute. The code files listed below are "Distributable Code."
You may copy and distribute the file XNAFX_REDIST.MSI and permit distributors of your programs to copy and distribute the Distributable Code as part of those Windows platform programs.
B. Distribution Requirements. For any Distributable Code you distribute, you must
add significant primary functionality to it in your programs;
require distributors and external end users to agree to terms that protect it at least as much as this agreement;
display your valid copyright notice on your programs; and
indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Microsoft from any claims, including attorneys' fees, related to the distribution or use of your programs.
C. Distribution Restrictions. You may not
alter any copyright, trademark or patent notice in the Distributable Code;
use Microsoft's trademarks in your programs' names or in a way that suggests your programs come from or are endorsed by Microsoft;
distribute Distributable Code to run on a platform other than the Windows platform;
include Distributable Code in malicious, deceptive or unlawful programs; or
modify or distribute the source code of any Distributable Code so that any part of it becomes subject to an Excluded License. An Excluded License is one that requires, as a condition of use, modification or distribution, that
the code be disclosed or distributed in source code form; or
others have the right to modify it.
Essentially what that says is, "You can distribute your games for Windows as much as you like, but if you're going to use one of the XNA Starter Kits as the basis of your game then you need to substantially alter it (i.e., you can't release 'Spacewars Retro/Evolved Deluxe', but you could use Spacewars as a basis for 'Super Asteroid Miner 20x6' assuming you substantially change the code). Redistribution of the various necessary bits for XNA to work on a non-development computer is allowed."
Now for the Xbox 360 parts, which I believe is what you're up in arms about:
b. Programs developed for the Xbox 360 Platform
i. Personal Use. Use of any programs developed for the Xbox platform using the software is restricted to your personal, non-commercial use.
ii. Distributable Code. You are not permitted to distribute the Distributable Code for programs developed for the Xbox 360 platform.
iii. Additional Requirements. In order to use any programs developed for the Xbox 360 platform on your Xbox 360, you will need to
Download Microsoft XNA Game Launcher from Xbox Live Marketplace;
Obtain a Silver or Gold Xbox Live subscription;
Have a current membership to the Microsoft XNA Creators Club, available from Xbox Live Marketplace; and
Comply with the Microsoft XNA Creators Club offer terms, Xbox Live Cod
AFAIK, XInput has the ridiculous requirement of needing the 360 PC Controller to function at all. That may have changed since I first looked into it at it's release (times change after all...) but if it hasn't, it's really nowhere near a good replacement for DirectInput.
XInput works with keyboards and mice as well (for example, see the Spacewars demo game that's included with XNA Game Studio Express for keyboard support). As for joysticks/gamepads/other controllers, that's up to the developers. They should be able to write their own XInput drivers. Xbox 360 controllers already have a driver available that should work with the Xbox 360 wired controller (also called the Xbox 360 PC controller, exact same product with different packaging), any third-party wired 360 controllers (I haven't tested this, mostly because 99% of third-party controllers suck), and now also the 360 wireless controllers with the Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver (good luck finding one in stores, as they're currently relatively rare).
My own assumption based on comments from the XNA development team and community comments during the beta (XNA has been available in beta form since August). Right now, to be able to play XNA games on an Xbox 360 you need to have a Creator's Club subscription. This allows you to build and deploy your own games. The majority of the Xbox userbase has no interest in building games and would rather just play games instead. That's fine, but $100/year to be able to play indie games is a very steep entry fee. XNA is currently V1, and there are a lot of things that the XNA team has said weren't able to make it into this version and are under consideration for V2 or later. I expect the ability to download games in some manner (whether through a cheaper subscription, or by downloading the games from Marketplace, or by some other mechanism, I don't know) is very high on their priority list for the next version. Of course, that goal conflicts directly with the XBLA revenue stream, so they'll have to figure out how to protect the existing Marketplace while still allowing for indie games to be downloaded (for free? for pay?). That will be their biggest hurdle.
this is very close to being a wrapper around Direct X, execpt missing alot of features of DirectX including most of DirectInput.
Absolutely correct. Think of XNA as MDX (Managed DirectX) version 2.0. Oh, and DirectInput is missing because that's being replaced by XInput. It's easier to work with, and will be the way of the future (DirectInput will still be supported in DirectX, of course, since DirectX strives hard to be backwards compatible across versions).
It's ok for making Xbox360 games, but there are MUCH MUCH better toolkits for free for PC development then XNA.
Which of those other toolkits can target Xbox 360? Which ones support.NET code (aside from Managed DirectX, which is superseded by XNA)? Of course toolkits exist for the PC. That has nothing at all to do with XNA.
A lot of people are going "holy cow! xbox programming! yay!" and ignoring that they're giving us tools that have existed in the pc world for decades. Microsoft isn't giving anyone anything.. they're seeing how much we'll pay for what we can get for free.
There are two possible answers to this:
When was the last time a company gave you a very inexpensive way to develop games for a console system? The last I can think of was Sony's Net Yaroze (essentially a limited PS1 dev kit), but that was quite a bit more expensive than XNA currently is (at $100/year, it'll take 7.5 years for a Creator's Club subscription to equal the cost of a Net Yaroze). PS2 Linux doesn't count as it was seriously hindered in its capabilities, and PS3 Linux won't count until you can fully utilize the GPU. GBADev and DSDev don't count because they're not official development tools provided by Nintendo and rely on hacks to allow you to run your code on the handhelds directly.
What other frameworks allow you to build games for both PC (windows) and console (xbox 360) at the same time (there are a few minor differences you need to take into account, but if you write a game for Windows using XNA it's mostly trivial to re-build that for 360, with maybe a few shader tweaks here and there)? Do those frameworks allow you to load your game onto the console in a "legal" (non-modchip, non-hack) way? A framework like Torque doesn't count becase you still have to be able to get a 360 dev kit to be able to run your game (dev kits cost upwards of $10K, and getting one requires you to jump through a bunch of hoops proving that you're a competent software developer with a high likelihood of actually being able to ship your game in a timely manner among many other things).
That tools like this have existed on the PC for a while is a red herring, because tools like this for consoles generally have not. If you want to stick with PC development, that's fine, but it's orthogonal to the discussion at hand.
Here is some interesting code, using C# and the pixel shader which draws fractals 60 times a second using the XBox GPU. Initially I was skeptical about coding games with managed code (like C#), but it looks like we will see some games written in.Net. The drawing underneath still gets done natively, but you will be insulated to some extent.
XNA is just the next version of DirectX's managed interface (it's changed quite a bit from DirectX 9's MDX interface). Anything you can do with DirectX, you can do with XNA.
As for "games written in.NET", here is a video of the XBLA Marble Blast Ultra (built using the native-code Torque engine) converted over to XNA and.NET. You might not be able to build the next Gears of War or Halo 3 using XNA, but there's no reason why you couldn't build Marble Blast Ultra or Geometry Wars.
There must be some exploitable part that can be used to gain access to the hypervisor... It is Microsoft we are talking about.
No games have been found to be exploitable yet, and they're mostly written by third-party companies that aren't as familiar with the Xbox 360 as Microsoft is. Why would you think that Microsoft would suddenly screw up on something as important as the.NET framework runtime?
Say what you will about Microsoft and security, but from all indications it looks like Microsoft got it "right" this time around (where "right" means "nobody's hacked it after more than a year, and no that DVD-ROM firmware hack doesn't count," which may conflict with the Slashdot "it runs linux" definition of "right").
Those of us who haven't upgraded should note that this is only for the 360, not the regular Xbox.
That's okay. You can still use it to write Windows games for free, and if/when you do upgrade to a 360 it won't be much extra work to port your game to 360. At best it's just a matter of setting up a new project using the same source and building that; at worst you may have to change some code if you're doing something the 360 doesn't support.
For now, you are. Your potential market consists of other users who have subscribed to the Creator's Club. Keep in mind that this is a "free" V1 product that has the potential compete with an existing monetary stream (XBLA games). Microsoft will eventually sort out a plan for how to properly distribute XNA games, but nobody knows when that will happen.
Is it just me, or would this speed up the development of Linux on the XBox 360?
It's just you. I guess it might be technically possible to build a virtual machine on top of the.NET Framework Compact Edition which could then run Linux, but that's not anywhere near the same as running Linux on the Xbox 360.
The Creator's Club is only necessary if you want the extra content/samples/support or if you want to run XNA games on an Xbox 360 (for now you'll have to have a Creator's Club membership even if you only want to run others' code, but that should change in a future release). If you just want to build Windows games using XNA then there's no reason to get a Creator's Club subscription.
Have you had this happen to you? Does it shut off/switch immediately, or does it wait a few seconds to be sure?
I use an AA1154a component video switch as mentioned by the OP and have never had this problem. I'm currently running an Xbox, Xbox 360 (was my DVD player before I got an Xbox 360 and HDMI-based upconverting DVD player), PS2, and Wii (was Gamecube before I got my Wii and component cables) and it works flawlessly. If you plan to have multiple items on at the same time you do need to think a little bit about precedence, but when I'm playing my PS2 I don't have my Xbox on and vice versa so precedence has never been an issue for me.
The only problems I've ever had with AA products are superficial -- the inputs are a little cramped, which means it's hard to change out items 2 or 3 when you have all of the other components connected. That's a common problem with all A/V components, though, and is mitigated by the fact that you should rarely have to swap out components anyway. I do take my Xbox 360 to LAN parties at work occassionally, but when I do that I just leave the component cable plugged into the AA1154a and use a VGA cable to hook up to the projectors at work.
AA products are pricey, but they're worth every penny IMHO.
Actually video is always 720x480 whether it is 16:9 or 4:3
This is why Photoshop has a setting in the new file dialog for NTSC video
You might want to check that Photoshop new file dialog again. Mine (an old version of PS Elements) has the following options:
720x540 Std. NTSC 601. This is a 1.333 (4:3) aspect ratio
720x534 Std. NTSC DV/DVD. This is just barely wider than 4:3 (1.35 rather than 1.33)
864x486 Wide NTSC 601. This is a 1.778 (16:9) aspect ratio
864x480 Wide NTSC DV/DVD. Like the Std resolution, this is just barely wider than 16:9 (1.8 rather than 1.78)
Standard and Wide PAL
720p (wide-only)
1080i/p (wide-only)
I didn't bother copying the resolutions from the PAL and HD (ATSC?) options because they didn't have the discrepency between "601" and "DV/DVD" like NTSC. In other words, Wide 480p is not a stretched 640x480 but an actual wide pixel image. It's also worth nothing that "480p" isn't necessarily 480 pixels because the image has to account for overscan (thus 720x540 rather than 640x480 -- 5% overscan all around for 720x540 results in 648x486).
You're right about how anamorphic images work (16:9 image compressed horizontally into a 4:3 frame to maximize vertical resolution rather than encoding in the letterboxing), and many games use a similar technique (Halo 2, Wii), but that doesn't mean there's not an NTSC standard for 16:9. It just means that in most cases you're watching a stretched standard 480p image rather than a true wide 480p image.
you can't install any OS on the xbox360.. no reason to bring up the xbox360 then..
I mentioned the Xbox 360 simply because it's PS3's console competitor and to illuminate how much 256MB of RAM sucks. The PS3 has the convoluted-but-apparently-powerful Cell, nVidia's powerful RSX chip, a built-in hard drive, etc but it's hamstrung by its lack of RAM. We'll have to see how it plays out, but I suspect that it will take developers quite a bit longer to really leverage the PS3's power due to that single limitation.
Oh, yeah, though you can't install other operating systems on an Xbox 360, it works as a functional media PC by itself, and is a near-perfect front-end for a separate media center PC (if only it could play DivX/Xvid natively...). So it does somewhat fit into the category of "inexpensive high-end media PC", if only tangentially.
What "high end" media PC has 256MB of shared memory? Low-end non-media PCs have 512MB of RAM (shared with the video card) these days. Even the Xbox 360 has 512MB of shared memory. A high-end media PC is more likely to have 1GB+ of system RAM and a video card with its own dedicated RAM. Multi-purpose machines need more RAM. Game consoles don't need as much because they have control over what they do with the RAM (few or no other processes running, access to the underlying hardware, etc).
Err, that should be "the next two images". The one after those two looks like it's from in-game but probably not taken by Zonk, and the last one is very obviously a conceptual render.
Actually, 480p can mean 640x480 or 854x480, depending on if you mean 4:3 or 16:9 (480p defines both, unlike 720p or 1080i/p which only define a 16:9 resolution). 720x480 is 3:2, and there are no 3:2 monitors out there.
That's what those shots look like to me, whether or not Zonk actually took them.
The first image looks like an in-game shot, but was provided in promotional materials from Nintendo quite some time ago. The last two images are cropped, high resolution (900x633), and quite obviously not in-game shots. Like the first, the latter two are also old promotional renders that Nintendo released a while ago.
the presence of pre-rendered footage in advertising a computer game still annoys me.
Unlock other companies (*cough*Sony*cough*), Bungie has been up-front with the fact that this ad uses rendered images rather than in-game footage. Ever since they announced that the ad was going to air, they've made it clear that it's not in-game.
But I do hope Bungie steals the specular map for the pre-rendered Whatsit Chief's armour - it looks far better than the slightly naff, moulded-plastic effort being flaunted in in-game screenshots...
While the footage is rendered CGI, all of the assets used in the video are from the game itself (or more likely, the high-resolution models and textures that the lower-poly in-game models and lower-res in-game textures will be generated from). That's not to say that there aren't more effects in the rendered video that can't or won't be done in-game, but I'd expect it to be relatively close by the time the game is done.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently Intel and nVidia were dumped in favor of IBM and ATI because the former would not release their IP to Microsoft. The upshot of this is that Microsoft could not take advantage of economies of scale to reduce prices (thus no Xbox-on-a-chip, without which it's impossible to include the old hardware in a new console). At the same time, at least nVidia was unwilling to lower their licensing costs. To them, it was either all of the pie or none of it, rather than at least getting some slice rather than no slice at all. It actually got to the point of legal action, though the two apparently settled out of court.
The relationship has always seemed more adversarial than symbiotic, at least to me.
On the other hand, JSRF was one of the pack-in games for a good 2+ years of the Xbox's life. You'd imagine that there are a large number of copies out there that people may want to play.
And on the other, other hand, only the Emulation Ninjas (yes, that's their job titles. No, really, it is) know what's keeping JSRF from being emulated. Is it demand? Lack of disks to test with? Insurmountable functional problems? Tricky problems that have been under-prioritized because they're not seen in any other game and they'll get more bang for the buck by focusing on other problems? There's no way for us to know.
Which two? What other games do you have? Are you sure they're not supported? The BC list has something like 200-250 games on it now, and while there are still some big-name games missing (the second and third Prince of Persia games, for example), it does cover a fair amount of popular games (which, BTW, is what Microsoft said they were going to do). It also covers some silly or bad games (Barbie Horse Adventure, Aquaman), but those are by-products of making other games work. The emulation team will work on getting something popular to work, like Halo, and then find that all of that work allows Barbie Horse Adventure to work as well.
If you're trying to make the point that out of the box the 360 only supports Halo and Halo 2, then your point is moot. If you are connected to Live, you'll automatically get the updates. If you're not on Live, you can download an ISO and burn your own CD with the updates. If you can't burn a CD, you can order a CD for a nominal shipping charge (I think it's $5) to get the latest updates. Now you'll have to go through this process every time there's a new BC update, but there's no point in updating unless there's new support for a game you want to play.
Obviously you haven't been following this, or you'd already know.
The PS3 is backwards compatible with PS2 (though there are some games with problems, the PS3 essentially includes a PSTwo Slimline-on-a-chip). It's not longer backwards compatible with PS1 games (which were only backwards compatible on the PS2 thanks to a PSOne-on-a-chip). Instead you get to re-purchase your PS1 games this time around so you can play them on your PSP. Like the Xbox 360, your old PS2 peripherals won't work with your new PS3.
The Wii is 100% compatible with the Gamecube because it's essentially the same hardware running at higher clock speeds. Put in a Gamecube disk and the Wii turns into a Gamecube (to the point of telling you to close the lid if you hit the eject button, even though the Wii has a slot loader rather than a top loader). The Wii has the same 4 controller ports and 2 memory card ports as a Gamecube, and in fact you must use those for Gamecube games (no saving GC games on the internal flash, or playing GC games with the Wiimote).
The Wii's backwards compatibility support is new to Nintendo in the console world (handhelds are a different story). There was no compatibility story between the NES and SNES, the SNES and the N64, or the N64 and the GC. In fact it wasn't until the PS2 that a console had a built-in backwards compatibility mode (well, ignoring older atari consoles that were largely ignored due to the market crash, and Master System/Genesis compatibility via external hardware since the external hardware was essentially an SMS that used the Genesis' controller input and A/V output). The only reason BC was important on the PS2 was due to a lack of good games during the PS2's first year. Yes, it's convenient to be able to play older games on your new console. Yes, some hardcore gamers will buy a PS2 solely to play PS1 games. No, not having BC is not a death sentence. In fact by skipping BC, a console manufacturer is often able to make bigger advancements generation over generation.
A year into a console's life, nobody cares about BC anymore. At least Microsoft is still releasing updates for their BC emulation.
That only applies to Microsoft-provided Distributable Code (ie, code from Starter Kits or samples). You should probably quote the full thing next time ("For any Distributable Code you distribute, you must ..."). If you don't want to continue to protect the code they're graciously giving you at least as well as they're doing themselves, then don't use their code. You can start a game from scratch rather than starting with Spacewars or XNA Racer.
Just two problems here:
Correction: XNA is not a retail Xbox 360 game dev kit. With V1, it's a hobbyist kit with which you can create games that other hobbyists (defined as "Xbox Live Gold or Silver subscribers with a Content Creator's Club subscription") can play. Expect that to change in later versions as the XNA team works out distribution arrangements on the Marketplace.
I just installed the RTM release (I had been using Beta 2). I took the liberty of copying the EULA just to make sure we're all on the same page. As I read it, there are two interesting clauses.
First, Windows games (sorry for the bad formatting, but this is how it copied out of the installer into Notepad):
Essentially what that says is, "You can distribute your games for Windows as much as you like, but if you're going to use one of the XNA Starter Kits as the basis of your game then you need to substantially alter it (i.e., you can't release 'Spacewars Retro/Evolved Deluxe', but you could use Spacewars as a basis for 'Super Asteroid Miner 20x6' assuming you substantially change the code). Redistribution of the various necessary bits for XNA to work on a non-development computer is allowed."
Now for the Xbox 360 parts, which I believe is what you're up in arms about:
XInput works with keyboards and mice as well (for example, see the Spacewars demo game that's included with XNA Game Studio Express for keyboard support). As for joysticks/gamepads/other controllers, that's up to the developers. They should be able to write their own XInput drivers. Xbox 360 controllers already have a driver available that should work with the Xbox 360 wired controller (also called the Xbox 360 PC controller, exact same product with different packaging), any third-party wired 360 controllers (I haven't tested this, mostly because 99% of third-party controllers suck), and now also the 360 wireless controllers with the Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver (good luck finding one in stores, as they're currently relatively rare).
My own assumption based on comments from the XNA development team and community comments during the beta (XNA has been available in beta form since August). Right now, to be able to play XNA games on an Xbox 360 you need to have a Creator's Club subscription. This allows you to build and deploy your own games. The majority of the Xbox userbase has no interest in building games and would rather just play games instead. That's fine, but $100/year to be able to play indie games is a very steep entry fee. XNA is currently V1, and there are a lot of things that the XNA team has said weren't able to make it into this version and are under consideration for V2 or later. I expect the ability to download games in some manner (whether through a cheaper subscription, or by downloading the games from Marketplace, or by some other mechanism, I don't know) is very high on their priority list for the next version. Of course, that goal conflicts directly with the XBLA revenue stream, so they'll have to figure out how to protect the existing Marketplace while still allowing for indie games to be downloaded (for free? for pay?). That will be their biggest hurdle.
Absolutely correct. Think of XNA as MDX (Managed DirectX) version 2.0. Oh, and DirectInput is missing because that's being replaced by XInput. It's easier to work with, and will be the way of the future (DirectInput will still be supported in DirectX, of course, since DirectX strives hard to be backwards compatible across versions).
Which of those other toolkits can target Xbox 360? Which ones support .NET code (aside from Managed DirectX, which is superseded by XNA)? Of course toolkits exist for the PC. That has nothing at all to do with XNA.
There are two possible answers to this:
That tools like this have existed on the PC for a while is a red herring, because tools like this for consoles generally have not. If you want to stick with PC development, that's fine, but it's orthogonal to the discussion at hand.
XNA is just the next version of DirectX's managed interface (it's changed quite a bit from DirectX 9's MDX interface). Anything you can do with DirectX, you can do with XNA.
As for "games written in .NET", here is a video of the XBLA Marble Blast Ultra (built using the native-code Torque engine) converted over to XNA and .NET. You might not be able to build the next Gears of War or Halo 3 using XNA, but there's no reason why you couldn't build Marble Blast Ultra or Geometry Wars.
No games have been found to be exploitable yet, and they're mostly written by third-party companies that aren't as familiar with the Xbox 360 as Microsoft is. Why would you think that Microsoft would suddenly screw up on something as important as the .NET framework runtime?
Say what you will about Microsoft and security, but from all indications it looks like Microsoft got it "right" this time around (where "right" means "nobody's hacked it after more than a year, and no that DVD-ROM firmware hack doesn't count," which may conflict with the Slashdot "it runs linux" definition of "right").
That's okay. You can still use it to write Windows games for free, and if/when you do upgrade to a 360 it won't be much extra work to port your game to 360. At best it's just a matter of setting up a new project using the same source and building that; at worst you may have to change some code if you're doing something the 360 doesn't support.
For now, you are. Your potential market consists of other users who have subscribed to the Creator's Club. Keep in mind that this is a "free" V1 product that has the potential compete with an existing monetary stream (XBLA games). Microsoft will eventually sort out a plan for how to properly distribute XNA games, but nobody knows when that will happen.
It's just you. I guess it might be technically possible to build a virtual machine on top of the .NET Framework Compact Edition which could then run Linux, but that's not anywhere near the same as running Linux on the Xbox 360.
The Creator's Club is only necessary if you want the extra content/samples/support or if you want to run XNA games on an Xbox 360 (for now you'll have to have a Creator's Club membership even if you only want to run others' code, but that should change in a future release). If you just want to build Windows games using XNA then there's no reason to get a Creator's Club subscription.
I use an AA1154a component video switch as mentioned by the OP and have never had this problem. I'm currently running an Xbox, Xbox 360 (was my DVD player before I got an Xbox 360 and HDMI-based upconverting DVD player), PS2, and Wii (was Gamecube before I got my Wii and component cables) and it works flawlessly. If you plan to have multiple items on at the same time you do need to think a little bit about precedence, but when I'm playing my PS2 I don't have my Xbox on and vice versa so precedence has never been an issue for me.
The only problems I've ever had with AA products are superficial -- the inputs are a little cramped, which means it's hard to change out items 2 or 3 when you have all of the other components connected. That's a common problem with all A/V components, though, and is mitigated by the fact that you should rarely have to swap out components anyway. I do take my Xbox 360 to LAN parties at work occassionally, but when I do that I just leave the component cable plugged into the AA1154a and use a VGA cable to hook up to the projectors at work.
AA products are pricey, but they're worth every penny IMHO.
You might want to check that Photoshop new file dialog again. Mine (an old version of PS Elements) has the following options:
- 720x540 Std. NTSC 601. This is a 1.333 (4:3) aspect ratio
- 720x534 Std. NTSC DV/DVD. This is just barely wider than 4:3 (1.35 rather than 1.33)
- 864x486 Wide NTSC 601. This is a 1.778 (16:9) aspect ratio
- 864x480 Wide NTSC DV/DVD. Like the Std resolution, this is just barely wider than 16:9 (1.8 rather than 1.78)
- Standard and Wide PAL
- 720p (wide-only)
- 1080i/p (wide-only)
I didn't bother copying the resolutions from the PAL and HD (ATSC?) options because they didn't have the discrepency between "601" and "DV/DVD" like NTSC. In other words, Wide 480p is not a stretched 640x480 but an actual wide pixel image. It's also worth nothing that "480p" isn't necessarily 480 pixels because the image has to account for overscan (thus 720x540 rather than 640x480 -- 5% overscan all around for 720x540 results in 648x486).You're right about how anamorphic images work (16:9 image compressed horizontally into a 4:3 frame to maximize vertical resolution rather than encoding in the letterboxing), and many games use a similar technique (Halo 2, Wii), but that doesn't mean there's not an NTSC standard for 16:9. It just means that in most cases you're watching a stretched standard 480p image rather than a true wide 480p image.
I mentioned the Xbox 360 simply because it's PS3's console competitor and to illuminate how much 256MB of RAM sucks. The PS3 has the convoluted-but-apparently-powerful Cell, nVidia's powerful RSX chip, a built-in hard drive, etc but it's hamstrung by its lack of RAM. We'll have to see how it plays out, but I suspect that it will take developers quite a bit longer to really leverage the PS3's power due to that single limitation.
Oh, yeah, though you can't install other operating systems on an Xbox 360, it works as a functional media PC by itself, and is a near-perfect front-end for a separate media center PC (if only it could play DivX/Xvid natively ...). So it does somewhat fit into the category of "inexpensive high-end media PC", if only tangentially.
What "high end" media PC has 256MB of shared memory? Low-end non-media PCs have 512MB of RAM (shared with the video card) these days. Even the Xbox 360 has 512MB of shared memory. A high-end media PC is more likely to have 1GB+ of system RAM and a video card with its own dedicated RAM. Multi-purpose machines need more RAM. Game consoles don't need as much because they have control over what they do with the RAM (few or no other processes running, access to the underlying hardware, etc).
Err, that should be "the next two images". The one after those two looks like it's from in-game but probably not taken by Zonk, and the last one is very obviously a conceptual render.
Actually, 480p can mean 640x480 or 854x480, depending on if you mean 4:3 or 16:9 (480p defines both, unlike 720p or 1080i/p which only define a 16:9 resolution). 720x480 is 3:2, and there are no 3:2 monitors out there.
The first image looks like an in-game shot, but was provided in promotional materials from Nintendo quite some time ago. The last two images are cropped, high resolution (900x633), and quite obviously not in-game shots. Like the first, the latter two are also old promotional renders that Nintendo released a while ago.
Oh man, that was a stupid typo. And I even previewed! :) Obviously that should read, "Unlike other companies."
The implication is that Spore will ship when it hits Alpha. I guess that's standard practice at EA ...
Unlock other companies (*cough*Sony*cough*), Bungie has been up-front with the fact that this ad uses rendered images rather than in-game footage. Ever since they announced that the ad was going to air, they've made it clear that it's not in-game.
While the footage is rendered CGI, all of the assets used in the video are from the game itself (or more likely, the high-resolution models and textures that the lower-poly in-game models and lower-res in-game textures will be generated from). That's not to say that there aren't more effects in the rendered video that can't or won't be done in-game, but I'd expect it to be relatively close by the time the game is done.