Microsoft Says PS3 Linux Not 'Competitive' To XNA 231
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.'"
He's right... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
From the FAQ:
"The XNA Framework Content Pipeline, a set of tools that allow developers to more easily incorporate 3D content into their games"
From an Ars Technica Article:
"3D models come in a dizzying variety of formats, depending on what tool has been used to create them. In order to make it easier for developers to create their own content, Microsoft has announced that SoftImage has added support for the XNA's native ".X" format to their Mod Tool 4.2 software, a free version of the company's popular 3D modelling program. In addition, the XNA software supports the Autodesk
From the same article:
"Microsoft hopes to help by providing subscribers to the XNA service access to the "XNA Creators Club," which includes a large database of free 2D and 3D art, models, and textures. Developers can use these assets as-is free of charge in developing their own games, or modify them to suit their purposes."
Again, from Ars Technica:
"XNA acts as a bridge between the
http://arstechnica.com/articles/xna.ars/1
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/
Let's all work together to bust the FUD.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
For games though, it's a bad news. Let's hope Sony will update the hypervisor to allow RSX access for Linux.
Re:He may be right (Score:5, Informative)
XNA is an input and graphics interface wrapper, like Direct X but sits 1 tier higher. It also provides some objects to store typical things every game engine designer has to write for a new game engine so that you don't need to reinvent the wheel. It is NOT a template for 2D games. XNA is NOT a game engine. There is NO restriction on art content. You can include whatever models and textures you want. It's even a piece of cake to include vector and pixel shaders.
In fact, the demo game provided with XNA is a 3D game. Styled like the old spacewars games. 3D and 2D are both easily doable on XNA. Why you may be seeing more 2D than 3D is simple. Indie game developers are not often artists, and it is far simpler to create a 45x45 animated gif of a player, than it is a 2 million polygon, parallax and normal mapped, skeletal player model. Not that 3D art needs to be nearly that complex...but in a 2D world, people don't expect the things they have become accustomed to after all the triple-A game titles, with the budget of a small Hollywood movie.
If you indeed did "look into it" you saw a few screenshots and derived your judgment solely from that.
Re:What's an XNA? (Score:2, Informative)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/ [microsoft.com] - FAQ
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?F
Crap (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
-Eric
Re:He's right... (Score:3, Informative)
I do the same thing with feces.
-Eric
Re:Things never change (Score:2, Informative)
2) Porting a driver won't do you a whole lot of good if your linux distro is running in a hypervisor that controls access to the RSX.
"The Nvidia graphics card is not supported beyond framebuffer mode. This does not reduce the quality of the image, but does not provide accelerated video nor OpenGL support. Refer to the this HOWTO for information about HDMI, Multi-Out and associated TV/Monitor connections." From here [terrasoftsolutions.com].
That protection will be circumvented eventually, but they Sony will release a new firmware (think PSP ) that closes that hole. So, no, PS3 linux isn't competitive with MS XNA.
Re:He's right... (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, hobbyists, Nintendo only sells devkits to legitimate, established software houses. Ones that have secure offices where Nintendo can be assured that their proprietary resources won't be stolen from and put up for sale to the least scrupulous bidder.
If you want to develop for their handheld platforms, though, the homebrew community has pretty much reverse-engineered every aspect of the GBA and DS, and there are even a few decent IDEs available for them.
XNA is pointless anyways (Score:3, Informative)