Microsoft Announces XNA Game Development Platform

Thanks to GameSpot for its story revealing that Microsoft is unveiling its XNA game software development platform later this morning at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose. XNA is "designed for use with future iterations of all Microsoft game platforms, including Windows, Xbox, and Windows Mobile-based devices" to make simultaneous platform development easier and cheaper, and the company is also expected to announce "Xbox Live-style functionality for billing, security, and matchmaking being made available to Windows developers... [and] the introduction of controllers that are compatible with all Windows and Xbox game players" as part of this move. IGN Xbox has an interview with Microsoft's Jay Allard and Dean Lester which explains XNA as being a cross-platform, evolving toolset that will ensure backwards compatibility, giving the example: "...[if] Adobe was writing an application for Win95, and then WinNT came out there were special features they could take advantages of -- they didn't have to throw it all away and start again." Update: 03/25 00:46 GMT by S : Microsoft has made the official XNA site public, including streaming video from unspecified next-generation games.

winmm anyone ?

[freuddot]

Anyone remembers winmm ?
Anyone remembers winG ?

Guess this will end up just as useful...

Re:winmm anyone ?

[MikeTheYak]

Anyone remembers DirectX? Oh wait...

directx

[DreadSpoon]

Anyone remember that one? I don't think any games use it these days, right? ;-)

To be honest, this sounds rather useful, altho in an unfortunately "only for Microsoft developers" way. Porting apps between consoles and computers takes time, a lot of time, simply because portable toolkits don't exist, yet. Standard sets of game controllers between computers and consoles don't sound bad either, altho those have existed for some time.

Being able to write a game once, and with little modification have it running on both a PC and a console, is a Good Thing for developers and users. Lots of fun console games might start becoming available on the PC as well, for those of us that only need to own one game machine.

Of course, certain games will always remain best suited to a particular platform. i.e., playing an FPS with anything but a mouse and keyboard is just sick. Quit trying to make those damn things for consoles, will you? ;-)

Re:directx

[TrentL]

Well, I think even as a learning tool it would be awesome. If I could write & run X-Box code on my PC, that would be an excellent way to learn the system. Sure, it might not run as fast, but at least you could see the code in action and fiddle with it.

Another benefit is that other companies may be forced to take similar approaches. Is there Nintendo-approved Game Boy development kit for the PC? Or a program that lets mere mortals compile PlayStation2 code?

Re:directx

[Zangief]

To be honest, this sounds rather useful, altho in an unfortunately "only for Microsoft developers" way. Porting apps between consoles and computers takes time, a lot of time, simply because portable toolkits don't exist, yet. Standard sets of game controllers between computers and consoles don't sound bad either, altho those have existed for some time.

Sega used Renderware for Sonic Heroes, and the game looks good(not great, but good) on each platform, PS2, GC and Xbox. Apparently Renderware supports PC al

Renderware is used on GTA3

[Thag]

So, it definitely works on the PC as well.

Jon Acheson

Re:directx

[PainKilleR-CE]

Standard sets of game controllers between computers and consoles don't sound bad either, altho those have existed for some time.

Though they've existed mostly as converters to make the non-standard USB connectors on consoles work in the standard USB connectors on PCs, along with some driver hooks in some cases.

Of course, certain games will always remain best suited to a particular platform. i.e., playing an FPS with anything but a mouse and keyboard is just sick. Quit trying to make those damn things for

Re:directx

[HexRei]

"Being able to write a game once, and with little modification have it running on both a PC and a console, is a Good Thing for developers and users. " My god, martha stewart has found slashdot. and she's an MS fan.

Portable toolkits do exist but more are needed.

[Rolman]

It may not be popular (yet) on PC/Mac/Linux/whatever environments, but portable toolkits do exist in the video game industry. Renderware [renderware.com] is an example of a modular toolkit that is used to make a game that can be ported to several consoles. Just recently, Sega's Sonic Team used it for a high-profile cross-platform project you might have heard about, it's called Sonic Heroes [ign.com] :p . This is getting increasingly popular because of market issues. EA, Konami, Namco, Capcom and many others use this kind of cross-platform toolkits because it can cut development time by an order of magnitude when they want their products to be launched to a wider, multi-platform market.

This is also a problem for the console manufacturers, as they want to push their own, proprietary toolkits and get exclusivity for as many important titles as possible. This is why Microsoft is going to push this XNA thing very hard, it wants developers to stay inside the DirectX world.

Cross-platform, feature-complete, strongly supported APIs and toolkits are a big necessity in today's marketplace to comply with the very high standards the video game industry demands.

By the way, I'll start my little rant about OpenGL. I love the thing very much and it used to be great, but I'm really sad to see it's very outdated now and it doesn't reflect current game developers' needs, for example, fragment shaders support is something not well defined yet and it's a market requirement, you can't just port games from Windows and not support fragment shaders. Then there's the thing about OpenGL supporting SO MUCH F'ng more than just games-related functions (the API is still very strong in the professional apps space), remember the API subset some games had during the Voodoo era? This is also a requirement for today's games, a lightweight, full-featured API without unnecessary bloat.

To make matters worse, OpenGL doesn't include equivalent cross-platform audio and input APIs/toolkits, so you need to rewrite these parts for each new platform, or create your own API (and you still need to write support for it in every platform), or maybe look for some of the half-baked efforts out there.

Here's the reason DirectX smokes everybody else: We don't have a good cross-platform alternative to game development.

id Software, however industry-leading it may be, can't sustain our only true cross-platform open API in existence alone forever.

Re:Portable toolkits do exist but more are needed.

[Darren Winsper]

You start off OK, then you just seem to lose it towards the end of your post. OpenGL doesn't include cross-platform audio because it's a Graphics Library. Want cross-platform audio? Use OpenAL. SDL is good at input handling, I'm not sure if it does networking too, but I've never heard good things about DirectPlay.

As for 3dfx's miniGL, it was widely scorned because 3dfx had to keep on updating it due to the next version of Quake needing to use more OpenGL functions (Not to mention other Quake-based game

Re:directx

[sbrown123]

simply because portable toolkits don't exist, yet.

What?! Where have you been. OpenGL/AL, Alegro, SDL, just to name a few. If you use them instead of DirectX you can write games for a large number of different systems. DirectX sucks.

Re:directx

[lowe0]

Really.

Only crappy games like Unreal Tournament 2004, Battlefield: Vietnam, Rainbow Six: Raven Shield, Max Payne 2, etc. use DirectX. We'll just ignore that one of the most anticipated titles, Half-Life 2, will use DirectX 9 to its fullest.

Nah, none of those are important. Let's all play Tux Racer instead!

Compatible

[airrage]

Good, they can make xbox2 games backwards compatible!

Re:Compatible

[flewp]

Unfortunatly, the XBox 2 will not be backwards compatible with original XBox games. This could potentially really hurt XBox2 sales I would think. When GT3 came out for PS2, I debated getting one. I eventually opted to buy one on the basis that even though it was expensive, I could play GT3 and some of my old PS1 games to tide me over.

It's funny that MS, who is now looking for compatibility and ease of porting won't have the XBox2 be able to run XBox games.

Re:Compatible

[drinkypoo]

Making your old games run on your new system is a double-edged sword. For instance, how many people didn't bother with Tekken Tag because they already had Tekken 3 and they're not a hardcore fighter fan?

Sound business practice

[Pac]

The console business is about selling games, not machines.

Nintendo did it many times already and got away with it, reselling old classics revitalized to the new platform. Mario Kart, for instance, was a major hit for N64 and the game cube version was a best seller all over again. The Zelda series spawn over two generations of gamers already.

Re:Compatible

[badriram]

Except I am guessing this would be next round of antitrust lawsuits against microsoft in the next 3-4 years.

NO. It's possible only if you have source code

[News for nerds]

because, the same dev platform means only they are rebuildable, unless they are on entirely binary compatible environment such as .NET. I don't think game developers go managed code soon.

Killing a game project

[tcopeland]

...from the Allard/Lester article:

We're seeing a lot of pressure on medium-sized developers today. And it's not just the little guys. We've killed projects internally that have been three to five million dollars in. That's not a little development team.

Jeepers. Killing a game after spending $3M on developing it? How does a game get that far only to be cancelled?

Re:Killing a game project

[leomekenkamp]

Well, that particular team wanted to put in 'more advanced features' in the game; better A.I., 3D graphics, surround sound, you name it. Unfortunately, when upper management saw what that team had created thusfar, they simply dismantled the development team and took what they had and put that into Windows. Nowadays that game is known as minesweeper.

Re:Killing a game project

[SmackCrackandPot]

Killing a game after spending $3M on developing it? How does a game get that far only to be cancelled?

Sometimes because another company has released a game based on a similar theme. The counter-measure to this is to sign exclusive contracts with whoever/whatever you're basing the game on (Electronic Arts will sign exclusive deals with famous athletes). Or maybe because the development runs late and isn't going to make a target date (Christmas, start of Summer holidays). And maybe if a publisher decides t

Re:Killing a game project

[dasmegabyte]

Well, if you put $3m into a game only to find a year later that you've got little beyond an engine and a premise that's overdone in the marketplace, and you'll need $10m and two years more before you could make enough back selling the game to cover costs, then you save $7m and a lot of uncertainty by cancelling the project and getting to work on some better use for that time & money.

Remember, the most important part of editing is knowing what to keep and what to throw away. If you just released every POS you put any effort into regardless of whether it was worthwhile or bug free...well, you'd be ValuSoft [valusoft.com].

DIlbert.

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

I guess you don't read Dilbert. Things REALLY ARE LIKE THAT in the real world.

Happens all the time with software projects

[DaRat]

Happens all the time with software projects. Far better to kill the project at $3million down the tubes than $25 million down the tubes.

I worked as a consultant for a project at a big insurance company. After an estimated $25 million, 1 1/2 years, and 40 people assigned, they killed the project after determining that the vendor's product didn't work well enough to be used in production.

At my current company, we haven't thrown away that much money, but we've killed projects after 1 year of development wh

Re:Killing a game project

[Quarters]

$3 million is nothing. A 20 person team with an average salary of $60,000.00 will burn through that in 2 years just in salary and benefits alone. Factor in equipment costs, recurring bills (rent, utilities, etc..),middleware and the such and $3 million will maybe get you a year or so into a product. That's maybe a tradeshow quality demo, or possibly a loosely defined alpha (at best)

The chances are better if some off the shelf solutions (e.g. graphics engine) are purchased and not built. Those cost $, though. Sometimes a lot of money. Last time I was involved in an engine evaluation the big hitters (Q3 and Unreal) were upwards of $250,000.00/shipped title. That's almost 10% of the $3 million just for a graphics engine.

$3 million isn't a sufficient amount to get very far into a game these days.

Cross Platform Ports

[evilmuffins]

I hope this doesn't come into widespread use for games, Deus Ex2 was designed for the xbox, and it shows when you play it on a Windows Pc.

Re:Cross Platform Ports

[millahtime]

How will this development tool work for games that are designed to be cross system. Can they also use the data for say Playstation 2 or have to start over for that? Is this a way to lock a game into M$ systems???? If they make it very propritary it could be.

Re:Cross Platform Ports

[dasmegabyte]

So was KOTOR, and it's great on the PC. I hear good things about Halo's PC port, not to mention GTA3 and Vice City.

One example does not prove anything other than that Deus Ex 2 was a lazy port.

maybe better console to pc ports?

[radixvir]

well most games ive played on a pc which use gamepads, seem clunky and ill designed. but maybe this will stop bad console to pc ports (HALO) from happening. theres nothing i hate more than seeing options in an options menu which have been greyed out because they were there from the console version.

Re:maybe better console to pc ports?

[drinkypoo]

The primary problem with Halo is that it is super buggy. I was thinking about buying it so I warezed it and tried it instead. Three patches came out and it never stopped being a crashy piece of crap where I constantly got stuck in walls due to playing with the vehicles. Their solution? Make the vehicles "float" along walls and such so you can't get so close to the wall in the first place, so now it's harder to get vehicles into some places than it was with the unpatched game. THIS is the real reason the ind

Re:maybe better console to pc ports?

[delus10n0]

I purchased Halo for the PC, and am patched to the latest version.

What the crap are you talking about with the vehicle buffer/float thing? It just doesn't exist in the game. PC version vehicles behave exactly as they do on the XBox.

And the only time Halo/PC has ever crashed on me was when switching to a super-high resolution (1600x1200) -- which actually turned out to be ATI's fault (drivers.)

Moderation, -1: Parent is full of crap.

Cross Development = not good

[Snipet]

If Deus Ex 2 showed us anything its that the ability to recycle large chunks of code for two different platforms results in substandard fare. Is this the begining of homogenised PC / Console products which are not optimised for either audience or hardware?

By Crossplatform

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean that games will be equally playable on linux, mac, and windows? Or do you mean Windows games will be able to be played on Microsoft operating systems?

IMO playing a game on different Microsoft operating systems isn't crossplatform... Please don't use crossplatform if you don't mean it.

Until they port directx to mac and linux, it'll be hard for them to use directx and be "crossplatform."

Hrm

[flewp]

"Software will be the single most important force in digital entertainment over the next decade,"

I've always thought it would be the other way around. It always seems like hardware is usually the lacking component. I guess the quote is still true, given that even if hardware is behind, software drives the need for better hardware. But my main point is that it seems software can always be written to take advantage of, and even surpass hardware capabilities, so wouldn't hardware still be the single m

Yes!

[mao che minh]

I was eagerly awaiting the day Microsoft would become frustrated on their losses with the Xbox, and just try to gobble up the entire industry from the inside instead! Yes!

Terrible concept.

[michael path]

So, basically, my understanding is that if I put together a solid DDoS exploit for Windows using XNA, it will affect XBOX and Windows Mobile devices?

Moreover, this sounds like .NET for games. .NET has yet to establish itself anywhere useful except as an architecture for Web Development. That's all back-end.

It reads interesting. I see it as vaporware. I can't imagine anything useful coming of this. How could something exploit the power of the next gen X-Box (which appears to be using a non-Intel chip in the future), and still run awesome on Windows?

And porting to mobile devices? One doesn't need to look any further than the slow adoption of the highly broken .NET Mobile Framework (where you can make calls to your heart's delight, but damned if they're implemented) to understand why this will never arrive as hyped.

The only interesting part is that you see people out in the game development sector (Gabe Newell of Valve, for example) excited about the technology. These are the type of people you'd expect to know better.

-m.

Re:Terrible concept.

[drinkypoo]

So, basically, my understanding is that if I put together a solid DDoS exploit for Windows using XNA, it will affect XBOX and Windows Mobile devices?

Not necessarily true, though a DDOS is pretty easy to implement and hard to defend against. Still, as long as the implementations look the same to the games then they need not be the same. So this is not necessarily true.

Re:Terrible concept.

[mrseigen]

Good questions. I'm also wondering about the processor, particularly because they mentioned "Windows Mobile" (ARM-based PDAs, I would assume) devices. .NET appears suited for enterprise applications where performance doesn't matter that much, and it's strange that they would want to do a similar thing for a performance-critical thing like game development.

I'm sticking with SDL until they tell me this will work on Unix/Linux and such, so obviously I'll be using SDL/OpenGL for a long, long time.

Re:Terrible concept.

[Del Vach]

It reads interesting. I see it as vaporware. I can't imagine anything useful coming of this. How could something exploit the power of the next gen X-Box (which appears to be using a non-Intel chip in the future), and still run awesome on Windows?

I believe they're going to be using a variant of the G5 PowerPC. Gotta wonder how much that complicates cross-platform development.

Re:Terrible concept.

[torinth]

Yeah. It reminds me of that other gaming library they tried to make everybody use... What was it called? AngularX or something. That sure bombed.

Mod the parent up, he made a good point.

Re:Terrible concept.

[BoyPlankton]

You're in marketing, aren't you? You can't possibly be a developer ... actually, you couldn't possibly be a developer who knows what he's talking about. I think marketing though ... you know how to abuse buzzwords.

Re:Terrible concept.

[Spy Hunter]

Moreover, this sounds like .NET for games.

That's exactly what it is. It's "we're going to keep doing all the things we've already been doing, but we're going to call them XNA now." XNA is not a product, an API, a hardware specification, or anything tangible at all. It's just a brand name for MS marketing to slap on all their gaming-related stuff to make it sound cooler. The only real news items in these two articles were the plans to bring XBox live to PC games and the introduction of a single controller for XBoxes and PCs.

Bah

[JMZero]

So, basically, my understanding is that if I put together a solid DDoS exploit for Windows using XNA

A DDoS against what exactly? Against individual machines playing these games (ie. using multiple machines to stop a person from playing a game)?

Against the server? If so, then these technologies are mostly irrelevant - servers are their own thing (and can be patched much more easily than a million clients).

Or were you thinking more about a compromising security exploit, rather than a DDoS? And, if you'

Re:Bah

[michael path]

Actually, I didn't insult Gabe. My point was that people who obviously know what they're talking about, such as Mr. Newell, are giving props to a concept that IMHO won't see light of day.

It's more of a "I wonder what he knows that I don't" regarding XNA.

I only cited him because he was the most prominent name out of the three listed, but all gave (what appeared to be) a verbal "thumbs up".

As far as the DDoS Exploit, I actually meant DDoS or exploit. I typed quick, hence the rant-like feel as to what I w

Re:Terrible concept.

[Unoti]

Actually it seems like .NET would be an ideal platform for games development. .NET compiles to code optimized for the processor where it's executing, and we're looking at x86 processors, ARM, and PowerPC processors for platforms for the next few years. The code does compile, it's not interpreted. It's also a lot easier to use .NET than COM.

Re:Terrible concept.

[Unoti]

That's true. There's already a lot of latency on initial load, though, on my XBox and PS2.

Cross-platform, uh?...

[UncleAlias]

Let me guess: Microsoft, Microsoft and... hmmm more Microsoft?

Re:Cross-platform, uh?...

[TheSpoom]

Modded funny, but personally I'm going to try not to use/learn this for my own projects lest I be locked in...

Sure!

[Srass]

We've got both platforms, 95 and XP!

Re:Cross-platform, uh?...

[Unoti]

Good move. I mean, look at all those fools that tried and got locked in to DirectX!

"XGML" in the near future?

[parvenu74]

I am not a games developer, so I don't know what all else has to be taken into account for a "gaming development platform" aside from advanced graphics, but I presume that this is going to involve gobs of .NET and XML. Just as the future of .NET apps includes XML Application Markup Language (XAML), will we soon be seeing a similar markup scheme for games -- perhaps even called XGML?

Re:"XGML" in the near future?

[HoserHead]

Grand Theft Auto in XGML:

<innocents></innocents>
<enemies>

1. <hooker id="1" skankiness="3" />
   <pimp><bitches>1</bitches></pimp>
   

</enemies>
etc.

Re:"XGML" in the near future?

[Unoti]

I'm missing what you see as so outlandish here. Don't most games already use some kind of scripting engine for a good amount of their content today? Standardizing to a solid, proven scripting network is a great idea that could provide faster development time and make more robust features immediately available to developers.

Microsoft renames DirectX 10! What big news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft renames DirectX 10 - XNA and the crowd goes wild over nothing.

Sounds like a good way to kill the XBox cycle.

[Anonymous Coward]

The more their console acts like a PC, has PC software, and generally offers the same look and sound of a PC title the more the console buyers will stay away. True, there are a few people who see a console as an alternative from buying a pricey computer and having to upgrade, but most console buyers are more interested in what consoles do that PC's can not do. Be it proprietary video hardware, to exclusive games. When a game is out on PC and a console, it is no longer is exclusive. This drove a lot of people away from buying XBox1 in the first place - Why bother getting a console to play games we already have on our PC that does a whole lot more?

i had no idea

[theMerovingian]

billing, security, and matchmaking being made available to Windows developers...

Money, secure computing, and chicks - man, I want to be a windows developer! MS sure does take good care of their employees.

Cool!

[bgarcia]

Will it run on Linux?

;-)

Re:Cool!

[Jameth]

It will if we force it to. Ah, stubborn force combined with geekish ingenuity can overcome any hurdle, so long as it doesn't require strenuous physical activity.

Re:Cool!

[hey]

Maybe, eventually the Wine people will get around
to it but by then Micosoft will announce something else! And so it goes.

game development difficult at best

[192939495969798999]

I am surprised that more large companies haven't tried to make game development tools. There are a few things that nearly every game has, and that are really hard to do efficiently and quickly (the main game loop, for example). I honestly hope that Microsoft does make this and it does work, because that usually means some OSS people will make a knockoff that I can get for free and use, which will be awesome.

Re:game development difficult at best

[Unoti]

While the implementation of a game is difficult and demanding, it's easy compared to coming up with a great idea, doing excellent game design work, and creating 3d and graphical content. As an analogy, great art programs make it easier to make great art, but the user still needs artistic talent.

Your point about the state of game development tools may still be valid, but ideas and content are the stumbling block in game development more than technical implementation.

Re:game development difficult at best

[Scorchio]

I'm not quite sure what sort of tools you mean. There are plenty of middleware companies producing audio libraries, video codecs, physics simulations, 3d graphics engines, networking libraries and so on. Main game loops are pretty simplistic at top level, and any further in soon becomes extremely specific to whatever game you're making.

Re:game development difficult at best

[MagikSlinger]

I am surprised that more large companies haven't tried to make game development tools.

Of course you're surprised because big companies do make game development tools. Even mid-sized companies. EA has a big tools group for everything from sound to graphics. I used to work at a game company (which shall remain nameless) that spent quite a lot of money on tools. The problem was getting the game teams to use them.

Back in 1999, most game developers I knew insisted on writing their own code. Usually b

Cross Platform? Could this put paid..

[Channard]

.. to the rumours that the X-Box 2 will not have a HD? If MS are really aiming to make their latest dev cross-platform, the X-Box 2 would need to have a hard disk in order to be comparable to the PC.

Re:Cross Platform? Could this put paid..

[molarmass192]

Not really, a 512MB flash RAM module is probably around $20 in volume. That's a significant cost savings. The other issue is that there's money to be made selling "memory modules". That's money MS left on the table with the XB1. I wouldn't hold my breath awaiting an HD in the XB2.

Re:Cross Platform? Could this put paid..

[shadowcabbit]

... to the rumours that the X-Box 2 will not have a HD? If MS are really aiming to make their latest dev cross-platform, the X-Box 2 would need to have a hard disk in order to be comparable to the PC.

Not necessarily. Flash memory being what it is (ie cheap and plentiful), all you'd really need to do is put version 1.0 of the XNA framework on ROM and push patches/bugfixes to a 64MB slice of flash on the system.

Of course, this being MS, you'd probably need a hell of a lot more than 64MB...

Oh dear...

[Dark Lord Seth]

... matchmaking being made available to Windows developers ...

Serious yet funny 28 year old male Microsoft DirectX developer looking for cute and timid Microsoft Windows software engineer, between the ages of 25 and 30 with shoulder-length dark hair and pale blue eyes. Looking for a serious and caring yet professional relationship to share experiences and get yelled at by Balmer together. Must be willing to enjoy coding, Pepsi Blue, anchovis pizza, good thrillers and a little bit of DirectXXX, preferably in combination with any of the former. Serious inquiries only. Respond to article nr. 123456

oh puhleeeeeze!

[Thud457]

Any real developer who hasn't drunk the Micro$oft kool-aid knows damn well that DirectXXX is just a thinly-disguised ripoff of fu-fme with a thin wrapper of vendor lock-in!

So, What About OSS?

[Jameth]

Microsoft is supplying their game-developement-platform. Is there any hope of a competing OSS platform? I know there are some tools out there, but OSS is generally quite anemic when it comes to gaming blood.

Great!

[JBMcB]

So id can compile Doom 3 for a P4/DX9/512MBDDR target, press a button, and it'll compile for a Nokia phone! I bet that'll work GREAT.

Sounds like the old CHIP8 games.

http://members.aol.com/autismuk/chip8/

Re:Great!

[leifm]

No, it sounds a lot like Visual Studio .net. VS03 lets you use the same basic framework, languages, and environment to write code from phones to application servers. This sounds like the same kind of unification for several game platforms.

..for billing, security, and matchmaking..

[burgburgburg]

Matchmaking?
MATCHMAKING?!?!

For the love of all that's holy, who entrusts their love life to the same firm that brought us Clippy and Bob?!?!

Alternate headline:

[drinkypoo]

"New DirectX: XNA"

All this is, is a new version of DirectX which they commit to making compatible across different flavors of windows (including possible WinCE devices) which also has Xbox Live functionality (I wonder if they'll roll it into Live or The Zone?) The DirectX SDK will be supplemented by these new tools they're talking about, and a new name will get stuck on DirectX.

It's not that it's an unwelcome advance, but it's not much of an advance. Frankly the thing I'm most interested in is "the introduction of controllers that are compatible with all Windows and Xbox game players" which says two things to me. 1> Microsoft will be releasing a controller which will work on Xbox and Xbox 2 (possibly with different pigtails) with a HID driver to match. Note that this might just be the controller S with an official HID driver. 2> The Xbox 2 will continue to use USB, no surprise there but always nice to see a confirmation.

Re:Alternate headline:

[Unoti]

Are we sure it's not something more, like managed code .NET style?

Good news for gamers, good news for developers

[CokoBWare]

I am probably the minority opinion here (I own a PS2 and won't ever buy an XBox), but gamers will be benefiting most, because the Windows and console platforms will be more likely to get the same games, rather than just exclusive for one platform over another. Microsoft will be able sign development houses to exlusive XNA development contracts, in addition to exclusive XBox or PC contracts. Gamers get more games on both platforms. Gamers get games that can play against each other on either platform with the joint networking code. Gamers get features that are accessible to both platforms.

Developers win because they don't have to learn and develop with two separate middleware products. One set of middle-ware means standardized development that saves time and money. Developers can spend more time designing and implementing games rather than struggling with the platform's issues and quirks. I see XNA like the Java or .NET for gaming platforms. No matter what platform you write for, you have a standard you can code against and rely on for the future.

With XNA, the Windows PC and the XBox will be both first-class citizens. Everyone wins, including MS.

Re:Good news for gamers, good news for developers

[Jaguar777]

Gamers get games that can play against each other on either platform with the joint networking code.

No thanks. I would rather keep the Xbox and PC platform seperate when it comes to online play. I pay for Xbox Live for three reasons.
1) It is extremely hard to cheat using the Xbox + Xbox Live system.
2) High speed connections are required (read: No shooting at a 56K players lagging all over the place)
3) Level playing field (everybody plays with the same graphic settings / options. HDTV being the exception)

Okay, This is A Bit Offtopic, But...

[bfg9000]

Why oh why does every new product have to have the letter X in it? I find myself longing for the days of iEverything or eEverything.

Except for XML and Mac OS X, the X doesn't make any sense to me in any of the 48,000 "cool" products starting with X. Other letters are cool, too! How about M, B, or W?

C'mon! Innovate a little!

Re:Okay, This is A Bit Offtopic, But...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about M, B, or W?

Fantastic. Following your suggestion, we're going to be rebranding the Playstation 3 as the "BMW 3 Series". I don't see any problems there.

Thanks!

Sony.

Re:Okay, This is A Bit Offtopic, But...

[theghost]

Except for XML and Mac OS X, the X doesn't make any sense...

Right, because the obvious acronym for Extensible Markup Language is XML, and OS 10 would've been completely confusing for Mac users who were used to things like System 7, OS 8, OS 9. Switching to roman numerals is a much better option, especially since OS X...X.1...X.2 would look stupid, so instead you rely on the ever-so-obvious fact that Panthers are clearly better than Jaguars. (BTW, what's next, Cougar? Leopard? Cheetah? Thundercats Ho!

Obligatory bender quote...

[insomaniac]

Blackmail's such an ugly word. I prefer extortion. The X makes it sound cool.

Are you NUTS?? X RULEZ!!!

[PetoskeyGuy]

No other letter can compete with X, certainly not a VOWEL. Innovate all you want, but let me X-PLAIN...

Sex - it's almost all X, except for the curvey S parts, and that voyeurist silent e. uh huh, huh huh

eXciting, eXploding, eXterminating - Like ninja's who have real ultimate power.

Letter X - Once you get to this letter there you can relax because your almost done with the alphabet. It's a letter that even looks like a throwing star! If you dis the letter X again ninja's will apear and chop your damn head off!

XXX - Porn or alchohol? It's up to you!

xXx - A little different, but he's like this buff snow board, uzi totin, snow boarding bald dude that really cares deep down about cars and his country and blowing shit up, but not bosses so he's cool.

Triple-X - another different big sweaty guy who pretends to kick peoples asses for a living, but doesn't blow shit up. This one's not bald, but I bet people in the front row wish he was when his long hair flips sweat on them.

XXX - super rare genetic condition where someone is all girl and then some, probably like the powder puff girls.

Chemical X - yeah that's it Powder puff girls. Bubbles, Blossum, and Buttercup. Find the Marilyn Mason Remix.

X - Sign here please, or even I'm to damn lazy to sign my own name. The all-time official winner of Tic-Tac-Toe.

Malcom X - like asterisk it's a wildcard - it can mean anything you want it to mean, or that it doesn't matter. Or that your cool and pissed off.

eXtreme [sports|games|etc|X] - extreme anything. Exterme sports, extreme sailing, extreme grocery shopping. Do something wild and crazy to get a thrill. Now even wearing helmets is cool!

Base X - roman numeral for our standard number system. Uh... The simpsons had Bart almost get eaten by a lion because of this roman numeral thing.

XXX - Roman numerals for when people become OLD. Until next year when it will be changed to XXXX ;)

Programming - For loops always use X. It's a law or something.

Math - the whole horizontal part of the 2D co-ordiate system. Without X all graphs would be straight up and down lines. Y is nothing without X.

Generation X - Lazy good for nothing little bastards who can suddenly vote, buy cars and even video game systems. I think I may even be one of them.

XeroX - the coolest company in the freakin WORLD! I mean they START and END with X!!

eX-laX - Helps you out when you don't want to be full of shit anymore

XML - Extensable Markup Language. Could have been EML but then no one would have used it because that's just not COOL.

XBOX is the most incredible piece of hardware because they have 2 X's which implies they some how cram all that X goodness in that big ugly box.

So to summarize...

X is cool, X rocks, X MARKS THE FUCKIN SPOT!

(:D bring on the ex-lax responses)

Microsoft only? Then it won't be that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

While there are a few exceptions, XBox/PC cross platform games are not normally the best idea.

Good PC games are written with the PC in mind. The type of game, the interface, the use of keyboard and mouse, and generally the depth is much greater on a PC.

The XBox's strength, OTOH, is generally more geared towards action, platforming and relaxing on your couch with a controller.

Just because a game can be released on two platforms doesn't mean that it will be equally as good on both.

Replacing

[jlechem]

So what is this going to be replacing DirectX? I like direct x. I see it as making nothing but half assed attempts at covering multiple systems. When instead they could make a superior product by focusing on one system.

I hope Sony an Nintendo pull out the Anti-Trust

[bADlOGIN]

Sounds like they're extending the deskop monopoly yet again. Even if it's a load of crap, a nice Billion dollar threat would help level the playing field. After all, will other game development systems that run on windoze be able to work with these new controlers? What about 3rd party controlers that Sony or Nintendo develop that could work with Windoze PC games as well? Will they not be required to support them?

Microsoft Monpoly II?

[superultra]

Two things.

1. I have no avid, passionate, deeply ingrained hatred for Microsoft, which, compared to people around slashdot, makes me a Microsoft whore. That said, doesn't this sound exactly like Microsoft is using the fact that most people use Windows on their PCs to further the Xbox2? Essentially, because of DirectX and Windows, MS seems to be considering the PC as a sister platform to the Xbox. Seems to me this is a distinctly unfair advantage over Sony or Nintendo, both of whom obviously do not have an OS to speak of and basically have only one platform to speak of. Seems to me this is dangerous ground for Microsoft to tread, particularly after all the stink in the US they just went through and the whole EU morass that they're going through now.

2. I am no programmer, so perhaps this makes a lot more sense to someone else. But isn't it difficult to co-develop for something that will essentially be an Apple box with something that is Windows? Maybe it's the whole virtual machine thing MS picked up, but it seems kind of unlikely to me. Anyone care to explain?

This got +5???

[Rew190]

Seems to me this is a distinctly unfair advantage over Sony or Nintendo, both of whom obviously do not have an OS to speak of and basically have only one platform to speak of.

So what you're saying is that because Microsoft is making it easier for it's developers to develop for all of its systems, it's a monopoly? It's somehow MS' fault that Sony and Nintendo don't have a computer OS?

I am no programmer, so perhaps this makes a lot more sense to someone else.

Ugh, how is this insightful, mods? No offense to the parent at all, just stupid moderators.

Anyone care to explain?

Absolutely. Basically, you said this: But isn't it difficult to co-develop for something that will essentially be an Apple box with something that is Windows?

You're assuming that what they're proposing is an "Apple Box" (not quite sure what that means). It's nothing fundamentally different from a developing standpoint, the platforms are running stripped versions of Windows. MS is just bringing unified functionality to all of these platforms.

It must be stressed that the news is merely that Microsoft is making it easier for developers of its platforms to cross-develop or be able to jump to another system without too much of a porting hassle. Think XBox2 to PC conversions and vice versa that are simple to implement. This benefits MS since they're now making it easier for developers to bring their games to other platforms which MS owns. PROFIT!

This will be used to curb piracy

[Jarnis]

XBox Live style addtion to next-gen DirectX (Oh, sorry, XNA). This translates to OS-level CD-Key checks and other 'game calls home to see if it may run'-features for *SURE*. Next we get to pay monthly fees for simple head-to-head gaming.

And developers will scream in joy and jump into the bandwagon. Especially if same libraries are used in XBox2, so porting PCXBox2 will be easy.

Oh, and we get XBox controllers to PC. Well, on some level it's good - lots of great console-style games suck on PC due to non-standard joypads and/or keyboard-based controls. However, the day they start making PC First Person Shooters that *require* a crappy gamepad to play is the day I go berserk and feed the stupid joypad to the MS loonies.

Good move

[Dalcius]

Let companies make more money by making games easier to port, but at the same time lock them into a Microsoft based system.

Some gaming companies are keeping code portable in order to sell it on PC, PS2, XBOX, etc., and sometimes this leads to a Linux port. If you give management the tools to keep it on multiple platforms (albeit Windows-centric platforms) in half the time, I think it's safe to say that this is going to take a chunk out of potential Linux ports.

The only possible saving grace is that some companies will want to port their games to competing platforms like the PS2, but those games are likely to be console-oriented and as such not as well suited to a PC. Of course there are always exceptions.

MS is once again using it's market penetration to leverage more lock-in. Brilliant move on their part if you ask me.

Cheers

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Xbox 2 and Windows

[PorscheDriver]

Xbox 2 is based on PPC architecture. Windows will always be Intel. So having something like XNA becomes all the more important. The mad thing is that (as someone else has already posted), it will probably end up running some crazy-ass .NET style byte-code interpretors to hold it all together.

Everyone else would just write nice portable C, but MS will be determined to do it in the most arse-about-face way possible :-)

All I see are trolls

[cardshark2001]

Mods, haven't you noticed that most of these posts are completely about microsoft? Geez, you need to quit slacking and do your duties. What's the world coming to when people can just post their pro-Microsoft propaganda without fear of the righteous retribution of the almighty mod?

Next thing you know, we'll have emacs users getting modded up. It's chaos I tell you! Anarchy!

Console vs PC is a non-issue

[billcopc]

Usually there is little point in porting console games to PC or vice-versa. Different interface, different market. Sure we all fire up an emulator every now and then, but unless you have a USB gamepad that's really close to the console pad (or a native adapter), well it just doesn't feel right.

Tight handling is one of the most important aspects of game programming. If your jaw drops at the graphics & 5.1 sound but you can't aim for shiat using the d-pad, chances are that game disc will be found in t

Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to...

[parvenu74]

If you are speaking "the Queen's English" then it is indeed correct to say "Microsoft are" because in this case "Microsoft" is logically the collective term used to refer to the people who work for the company. Since the nominative is plural, one uses the plural form of the verb.

Of course, we Americans don't usually see the people behind the company name but rather tend to personify the company as an individual rather than a collective, hence we are much more used to hearing "Microsoft IS a bad company" i

Re:Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to...

[Cruciform]

The corporation is recognized as an individual entity in it's own right within the scope of the law as well, making "is" right as well.

It's relative to the POV at the time.

Re:Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to...

[Chris Burke]

But since corporations have been given the same rights as citizens, it is correct (from a legal standpoint, anyway) to use the singular - after all, not everyone at Microsoft is a strutting prick.

A huge mistake that we need not incorporate into our language.

God knows, I'd hate to be blamed/associated with everything my company does...

Maybe if we were, we'd care a little more about the things our company does, and that includes the managers. Being able to hide behind the "corporate person" is how exe

Re:yeah

[lightspawn]

microsoft IS announcing, not ARE. Get over yourself.

That's where it all began, you know. Treating companies like people.

Aren't companies treated as plurals in the queen's English?

Nice one, American. Corrupt a language, then correct the people who still speak it properly.

Re:yeah

[Chelloveck]

Nice one, American. Corrupt a language, then correct the people who still speak it properly.

Embrace and extend, baby! Embrace and extend!

Re:Xtreme Nucleic Acid?

[WormholeFiend]

"If not, what does it stand for?"

it's was obviously made up by a huge fan of Lucy Lawless...

XNA: Microsoft Princess.
-

Re:USB

[CokoBWare]

The XBox DOES use USB, but not the same plug style. There are products that let you convert an XBox controller to a standard flat USB plug. With these adapters [play-asia.com] and the right driver, you can connect the XBox controller to either a Windows or MacOS X computer.

Re:Useless

[Trelane]

It's the marketshare / mindshare that they're after.

Exactly. They 0wn the desktop market at about 90-95%. Of course, about 90-99% of games are for Windows, and a vast majority of those games are written in Microsoft's DirectX. Microsoft is using the developers' familiarity with their systems to get them to port their games to the XBox, handhelds, and smartphones where MSFT does not yet have a monopoly.

This will likely bring an influx of games for XBox and the handhelds from Windows game companies and