XNA tilts video-game advantage to Microsoft?

[j^aws]

Published July 2004

XNA tilts video-game advantage to Microsoft

By Lionel Contreras
Guest Columnist

There’s a bit of a buzz going around for something called XNA. What is XNA, and how is it going to change the video-game business are two big questions.

Here’s the bottom line:

Microsoft’s XNA is a new, cleaner method of programming and constructing video games. Because video games have gone from a minor entertainment niche in the software market to a multibillion-dollar industry, lowering the cost of development is a key factor in gaming.

Most game studios spend, on average, more than a million dollars to bring each concept to a beta stage. For every game on the shelf there are at least two betas that died. So those same studios have to absorb millions of dollars of development cost for every game that gets shipped.

XNA lowers development cost by making all the initial boilerplate programming, which is a large part of the initial development expense, compatible with the Windows development software. So, regardless of what programming software is being used, the XNA pieces will easily interconnect with other gaming software. Before, the game studios had to custom make all the parts that fit together for the final product.

XNA has powerful tools to help speed up the designs, with high-level shaders and sound development tools. It allows the programming teams to concentrate on the game levels, character development and game content instead of focusing on the working nuts and bolts that makes everything run within the game.

Because XNA also deals with unifying the controllers across platforms, it eliminates the time and money spent on how users interface with games, making them cross-platform compliant so the game studio doesn’t have to redevelop the controllers for the PC, Xbox and the Windows wireless platforms individually.

With the development cost decreased, more games can be built that are more geared toward the complexity of game play. This allows more beta games to be produced and more successful products to be created and marketed because budget limits will no longer kill off so many complicated, high-cost, high-risk game designs in their conception stage.

In the corporate battle for billions of gaming dollars, this gives the PC and Xbox game designers a clear advantage over Sony PlayStation software designers. Also, since XNA will easily allow PC players and Xbox players to interact with each other, you will see cross-platform games that bring the previously separated “platform†player and “PC desktop†player together. This will mark the start of developing genre-busting games.

The availability of XNA technology will allow Xbox to catch up with PlayStation, the market leader, and give it a serious run for its money. With the coming of this next-generation of console games, it won’t be the hardware as much as the software that defines the platform — and XNA tilts that advantage toward Microsoft.

To read more on XNA, go to www.heraldnet.com/games and select the blog on XNA. The official XNA site is www.microsoft.com/xna/.

And for those of you who are interested in developing your own indie games, you can get the Direct X software development kit (SDK) at http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/.

Lionel Contreras is a systems technician for The Herald.

Source

Is XNA really M$ not-so-secret weapon.

 

[thop]

The article kinda makes it sound like developers that code for SONY or Nintendo have to work with notepad and the comand line or sth. Also so far the PC/XBOX connection was rather dissapointing (Halo, Unreal2, Deus Ex2, ...) as the game was only really good on one plattform (or neither ).

 

[randycat99]

They plan to give "Playstation" a run for its money? A mid-90's console with a CDROM and a 33 Mhz processor? Well that's an easy mark!

Couldn't they find somebody a "bit" more influential to write the article other than the company "system technician"?

 

[Spidermate]

All biasness aside. How about Sony giving THEM a run for their money.Afterall,they are the ones building a rival to compete with DirectX/XNA.People forget that Microsoft was the one that had the console that was easy to program for last time,not Sony. Now,if Sony had been gloating about their next console being easier to program for without something like DirectX assisting it,then the author would have made a lot more sense. But,as of now,Sony seems to be countering them with both middleware and a new DirectX which kinda makes building games faster and easier for only XNA users moot.

 

[a688]

Sony seems to be countering them with both middleware and a new DirectX which kinda makes building games faster and easier for only XNA users moot.

What? DirectX isn't a generic term, maybe you mean a graphics API. I dont' get what you are trying to argue anyways. Sony isn't the underdog here, Microsoft is. The article just states that Microsoft's XNA should give it an advantage over Sony's next console. If you really wanted all biasness aside you'd realize that this is just an article covering XNA. It doesn't deal with sony except to state that Microsoft hopes that since XNA makes making games, xBox2 will be the platform of choice for developers.

 

[Fafalada]

The article kinda makes it sound like developers that code for SONY or Nintendo have to work with notepad and the comand line or sth.

Nah, we stick with vi and cc.

 

[ERP]

The article kinda makes it sound like developers that code for SONY or Nintendo have to work with notepad and the comand line or sth.

Nah, we stick with vi and cc.

Please don't make jokes about this sort of thing.
After the step backwards the PS2 tools were over PS1, it wouldn't surprise me if with PS3 we were back toggling code in from the front panel.

 

[archie4oz]

Now, now... It won't be THAT bad... You'll at least have punch-cards to make things a little easier...

 

[Spidermate]

Sony seems to be countering them with both middleware and a new DirectX which kinda makes building games faster and easier for only XNA users moot.

What? DirectX isn't a generic term, maybe you mean a graphics API. I dont' get what you are trying to argue anyways. Sony isn't the underdog here, Microsoft is. The article just states that Microsoft's XNA should give it an advantage over Sony's next console. If you really wanted all biasness aside you'd realize that this is just an article covering XNA. It doesn't deal with sony except to state that Microsoft hopes that since XNA makes making games, xBox2 will be the platform of choice for developers.

Serious,do you know how you sound? Sony is building a rival to DirectX.It can't get any simpler than that.The reason be, THEY were the underdog as far as programming had gone for this generation.If you don't understand that,then I don't know what to tell you.How can you use this as an advantage against your competitor when they have something similiar to it is on the market?It would be like selling a shiney bike in a different color.It doesn't matter who the artical is talking about.The point is it is moot,especially since the two competitors are being compared.They will basically be right back where they started.

 

[vliw]

The article kinda makes it sound like developers that code for SONY or Nintendo have to work with notepad and the comand line or sth.

Nah, we stick with vi and cc.

If you complain about vi try codewarrior....home of bugs
Best tools come from Microsoft, X-Box sdk is 2 or 3 parsec more advanced than Sony tools.

 

[archie4oz]

Serious,do you know how you sound? Sony is building a rival to DirectX.It can't get any simpler than that

It is? Actually any console SDK can be considered a "rival" to DirectX in terms of console SDKs go. And I considered the DolphinSDK and KatanaSDK pretty comparable to the XDK in terms of documentation, ease of use, accessibility... The PS2 SDK I consider a fluke even for Sony considering what was done with the PSOne and the PSP so far...

As for the article, it's not about DirectX, it's about XNA (which proposes to solve a different (although related) set of problems (that actually a lot of middleware solutions actually address to some degree) in game development)...

 

[archie4oz]

If you complain about vi try codewarrior....home of bugs

Hey vi rocks! what's this nonesense you spaek of!? As for Codewarrior, what version and for what platform? CodeWarrior has been good to me in general (PSOne, PS2, MacOS, OS X), although tying to build mach-o binaries in 7 and 8 (9 is much more pleasant, although I prefer Xcode) was abysmal (and yes buggy)...

 

[ERP]

I refuse to ever touch codewarrior again.. Although to be fair I've heard that it's improved dramatically.
I've used it on 3 or 4 platforms and it used to be by far the most buggy piece of software I have ever used (and I'm including 3D packages in that list), to the point I'd rather use command line tools than rely on it for production.

But to be fair I do know of people who've had more positive experiences recently.

 

[Spidermate]

Serious,do you know how you sound? Sony is building a rival to DirectX.It can't get any simpler than that

It is? Actually any console SDK can be considered a "rival" to DirectX in terms of console SDKs go. And I considered the DolphinSDK and KatanaSDK pretty comparable to the XDK in terms of documentation, ease of use, accessibility... The PS2 SDK I consider a fluke even for Sony considering what was done with the PSOne and the PSP so far...

As for the article, it's not about DirectX, it's about XNA (which proposes to solve a different (although related) set of problems (that actually a lot of middleware solutions actually address to some degree) in game development)...

Oh heavens....

Something this simple should not be thrown around as if it were some space invention.You knew exactly what I was refering to.My message made it pret-ty clear what I was describing.All this beating around the bush is really uncalled for.Sony is countering Microsoft's XNA.Please,drop the subject already.It is becoming insanely obnoxious and ridiculous when it really shouldn't be.

Of course the artical is not about DirectX,but we know what DirectX is used for,which is basically what XNA is but a bit more advance.Sony is not building DirectX.They are building something like DirectX (their own version,basically) to program games for the PS3.Simple.It is very,very simple.

 

[archie4oz]

Sony is countering Microsoft's XNA.Please,drop the subject already.It is becoming insanely obnoxious and ridiculous when it really shouldn't be.

They are? I've got a lot more inside info than you do, and this "XNA counter" news to me... :? Besides you're the one that brought it up...

.They are building something like DirectX (their own version,basically)

What makes you think it'll be like DirectX? Who's to say it won't be like Allegro or SDL?

 

[Tuttle]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the posts in this thread.

I'd rather read through another twenty page long 'launch strategy' debate thread.

You guys are actually debating a new marketing term for some MS dev tools???

 

[randycat99]

Allegra keeps my nose clear.

 

[vliw]

If you complain about vi try codewarrior....home of bugs

Hey vi rocks! what's this nonesense you spaek of!? As for Codewarrior, what version and for what platform? CodeWarrior has been good to me in general (PSOne, PS2, MacOS, OS X), although tying to build mach-o binaries in 7 and 8 (9 is much more pleasant, although I prefer Xcode) was abysmal (and yes buggy)...

My bad experiences are with Ps2 Codewarrior(i don't remember version number) now i use .NET ide and gcc

 

[London Geezer]

Sony is countering Microsoft's XNA.Please,drop the subject already.It is becoming insanely obnoxious and ridiculous when it really shouldn't be.

They are? I've got a lot more inside info than you do, and this "XNA counter" news to me... :? Besides you're the one that brought it up...

.They are building something like DirectX (their own version,basically)

What makes you think it'll be like DirectX? Who's to say it won't be like Allegro or SDL?

That was funny... Wonder how Spidey will respond to it...

 

[Tuttle]

CodeWarrior is unparalleled in console development.

The IDE + performance analysis tools are all anyone needs to put out commercial console product.

Nothing but pity to anyone who is stuck with the snsys crap.