General strategy question about XNA

What is MSFT's strategy with GSE I mean, is it a stripped-down version of GS Pro meant to spark interest in GS Pro Is it actually going the core of GS Pro, and the hobbyist/student community is acting as both first adopters and beta (or even alpha) testers of the product Is it a way for MSFT to foster some kind of indie/small game shop Xbox360 game development

(The latter would seem to be slightly odd: the actual dev kits, I gather, are not a minor expense, in addition to what I'm assuming are certification and any other testing expenses; I would think that releasing an alternate path for Xbox game development might cannibalize an existing revenue stream...)

It would seem to me to be just simpler to wait for GS Pro to come out, and learn XNA then, or bite the bullet and swallow the costs for the Xbox dev kit/certification/etc.

Re-reading my message, I guess I'm still confused about XNA; why XNA (as opposed to non-XNA development) Wouldn't it be simpler, and perhaps cheaper, for MSFT to focus on cleaning up or simplifying the existing toolkits for game development, rather than trying to push out yet-another-new-game middleware (which my reading of the FAQ suggests XNA is)

I apologize for increasing the noise-to-signal ratio in the forums; I would've preferred to send this to in a private e-mail to an MSFT rep for just that reason, but I really am trying to get some kind of reply (hopefully, again, from MSFT).

Thanks (and sorry again about the e-noise),

monkeynova

1) The FAQ seems to be positioning XNA (GSE, GS Pro, Studio, Framework) as a series of tools that allow easier access to rich content from creation sources into a game; the examples one of the FAQ sections used referenced sound as an example; I'll admit that 'middleware' was probably too broad a brush stroke, but XNA does seem to do more than a 3D API...

2) I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I think it's great. It still makes no sense why Microsoft would do it; I don't believe it's a gift from the company to it's fans, and I really can't see a long-term benefit from it (again, why not work on improving Direct X, instead of trying to create a new framework/API ).

Thanks for taking the time to answer, though.

monkeynova

I've been wondering about this as well, and I think you're probably right that it's about generating GS Pro developers. I don't think that the X360 part of GDE is ever going to take off with the current terms, it's too expensive and cumbersome in relation to the quality of the games you'll be able to play - but it's a great lure to know that you can make your own X360 games.

However, GSE will produce a large number of game programmers that a) wouldn't have become game programmers without it and the X360 promise, and b) will be very familiar with MS tools and will tend to stick to them when they get to professional levels. With enough tools and components to make things easy, it can also draw more people into game creation that are not primarily focused on technology, which might lead to more unconventional content.

In the coming years of console warfare, this group may become a huge asset for MS.

Ely wrote:

I think it is safe to view XNA as the replacement for managed directX, so all those .Net developers out there who want to tinker in game dev now have an environment to do so that is easy and free.

All .Net developers are not "tinkerers" in the gaming realm - MDX/.NET can be used to write real-world games and tools. So far, I don't have any information that suggests that moving from MDX to XNA would be a good thing for our studio. One problem is that we can't use our own renderer (e.g. DirectX with FFP, or software mode for 2D projects), another that it's harder to move to mono (for OSX/Linux ports).

Maybe this will be resolved in GSP, but until I have some hard facts I'm just going to sniff a bit on XNA and continue with MDX for our commercial products.

Jonas Beckeman wrote:

I've been wondering about this as well, and I think you're probably right that it's about generating GS Pro developers. I don't think that the X360 part of GDE is ever going to take off with the current terms, it's too expensive and cumbersome in relation to the quality of the games you'll be able to play - but it's a great lure to know that you can make your own X360 games. However, GSE will produce a large number of game programmers that a) wouldn't have become game programmers without it and the X360 promise, and b) will be very familiar with MS tools and will tend to stick to them when they get to professional levels. With enough tools and components to make things easy, it can also draw more people into game creation that are not primarily focused on technology, which might lead to more unconventional content. In the coming years of console warfare, this group may become a huge asset for MS.

Thank you; yes, that does give me a better idea of some of the long-term thought processes among the XNA team. My only having a passing familiarity with the Long Tail effect would most likely explain why that never occured to me...

Thank you for the other responses in this thread, too; it's very educational for me to read other's ideas about XNA!

Again, thanks.

monkeynova

I really don't think that the Developers' Club can become a YouTubish phenomenon, not with the requirements/pricing suggested so far. If they were directly downloadable to the X360 (and its GUI gets a remake by someone who knows good interaction design :p), then maybe - or if there was an XNA browser plugin so people could make stuff for the PC that could actually be sold or generate ad revenues, it could get very big.

Right now I think expectations are a bit too high on that part. But I have high hopes for XNA overall.