• Develpers have been squaking for the longest time about development costs. Seeing all the little guys either go out of business are get gobbled up by the big guys is kind of a testament to this. It costs more and more to program and to develop art assets on the new consoles.
• XNA is designed to allow easy cross platforming between the PC and Xenon.
• XNA is not only aimed at cross platforming between the PC and Xenon, but is also aimed to streamline the development process buy further integrating middleware.
• Software is MS forté.
• MS, from the leaked diagrams and patents, has designed a system similar to concept behind the GCN. Simple (compratively), clean, powerful. You can add another word: Flexible. They have stuck with fairly familiar formats that are flexible. The GPU will used unified shaders which should allow some flexibility in game design, and it looks like the vector units on the CPUs can also take some of the geometry tasks if needed.
• DX. MS has a slew of developers knowledgable in DX9. MS is leveraging this advantage and the technology developed around this API. This helps MS and developers a lot.
• MS has been very vocal about their goals to help alleviate some of the stress and ballooning budgets associated with next gen game development. And not only talk, but action.
All of this is focused in reality. As for Balmer--yeah, he is excited about his product. But his major points, the ones I highlighted and focused on, are totally valid. If you want to do some finger pointing go look at
John Peddie's article on CELL and note the comments on CELL and EE.
Some of you guys and gals just cannot accept the fact that the competitors to your favorite console(s) do some things right and even do things better than their competition at times.
Btw, I thought it would be fun to go through my post and see where I am "regurgitating hype" as so accused.
By golly MS might not be the idiots most make them out to be.
Very factual. Just read the forum here or in other non-Xbox forums. People love to slam them no matter what they do.
Out of the big three MS is the only one publically declairing the need to help developers.
Fact, MS has been very active for over a year evangelizing the need for reducing costs and decreasing production times in next gen games. XNA was anounced at last years GDC I believe.
I do not know how many times I have read about the rising costs of development and the money/gamble it will be to develop a next gen game. Serious issues that need serious solutions.
Fact, and a very serious issue. When you are looking at game development budgets going higher and higher--that is a problem for all but the biggest publishers. The EAs of the world can protect themselves by buying their own middleware (e.g. Renderman), but what about the small guys who make good games but are not able to churn out licensed game after licensed game?
And MS is not just blowing smoke, they are doing something about it: XNA.
Fact. MS has not just said, "We are doing our best to lower production costs for game development". Nintendo has said they understand the spiraling costs, but have made no statements on how they expect to handle this. Building effecient HW is just one part of the equation--software development tools are even more important. MS has put their money where their mouth is and have been very active in preaching their efforts (not just their intentions) to help developers. They are not just talking about doing something, they are doing something.
Now, whether that will be enough to gain marketshare, I do not know.
And to balance out my positivism about Ballmer's statements I get to the reality of the issue: Will this allow them to gain marketshare? I do not know. I am not just buying his hype, I am looking at where it could
potentially be a boom for MS. But without knowing how much they have invested into XNA and how good it is at this stage I am not going to declair MS's XNA as the sole solution to the issue. I would call this objective, not regurgitating hype with no relation to reality in any way.
And obviously Sony and Nintendo are not sitting around doing nothing, but I do wonder how developer friendliness plays into the console designs.
Another objective statement to balance out Ballmer's enthusiasm. How did that get in here? But lets explore this: Are Sony and Nintendo doing more than MS on the software side to reduce costs and development time? Has Sony created a console that is more accessible and therefore more affordable to develop on than MS?
I think we would all agree that losing all the smaller developers and having them assimilated by no-risk publishers who want to push tried and true sequals is no fun. Especially when they push out games that given 3-6 more months could be A titles, but end up being C titles with a lot of bugs and small tweaks and features that would have made the product significantly better.
Totally and completely grounded in reality. If you cannot see this I wont be able to change your mind.
So, your turn. I defended every statement you quoted as having "
absolutely no relation to reality in any way. You are simply regurgitating hype." Please show that my post (note: You did not say statements, you said post) is what you claim.
And I want to go back to what Ballmer said that I liked: He not only understands, but is focusing on the most important aspect of consoles: The games, not the technology. The technology is there to bring the best gaming experience to the table. The best HW specs does not guarantee the best games. That is a fact. Technology is just one element that makes a game good. The fact his focus is on (1) "great environment, software environment for people to write games, games that connect to one another, games that are social, games that are hard-core. We've got to make sure we let people write great games" is great in my book. MS has graduated from "Lets have the best specs" to "Lets make this as easy as possible so they can write great games" is step in the right direction. As a Nintendo fan I can say I like hearing this a lot better than "Gamers do not care about complex games... gamers do not want better graphics, sound, or in depth games with long stories" (Ok, I am over stating this case, but it is not to far from what Nintendo's pres has said). And (2) MS making great games. Obviously MS cannot expect 3rd parties to make all their hit titles for them. They need to push the HW and really show off what their console can do. And they need to share this knowledge. A certain other company I am a fan of seems to historically be pretty tight lipped about sharing their tech at times.
I really see a graduation in the thought process from MS. And it is not just the statements they have made, but what I am reading about XNA and also the philosophy that the Xenon specs convey. The funny thing is I did not defend everything Ballmer said--I liked specific parts of what he said which I liked.
Feel free to disagree Tuttle, but at least provide some facts when accusing someone of hype. Since my post has no relation to reality, time to prove it.
