The last few months have seen a downturn in Xbox 360 sales. Will Microsofts new Xbox Live XNA user developed games plan make any difference to the consoles fortunes?
The last few months have seen a downturn in Xbox 360 sales. Will Microsoft’s new Xbox Live XNA user developed games plan make any difference to the console’s fortunes?
It’s not been a good few months for Microsoft, with Xbox 360 console sales down, the Red Ring Of Death continuing to rear its ugly head, HD DVD losing out to Blu ray in the high definition DVD format war, and the PS3 starting to sell in larger numbers.
So what’s Microsoft’s big plan for the near future? Trying to make the Xbox Live community a kind of YouTube for gamers, by allowing user created games to be distributed through the service to its 10 million members.
At the Games Developers Conference on Wednesday, Microsoft outlined the plan to open Xbox Live up to budding games developers, by allowing anyone using the company’s XNA Game Studio software to create a game and then be made available through Xbox Live.
Yahoo! reports John Schappert, a Vice President in Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment unit, as saying:
“The time has come for the games industry to open its doors to all game creators, enabling anyone to share their creations with the world,”
“Our goal is to drive a creative and social revolution in games with the same transformative power that we’ve seen in digital music and video sharing.”
All Xbox Live gamers will have access to the games, and be able to rate them in order to sort the wheat from the chaff, and I expect to see a lot of chaff.
The move is intended to double the amount of games available through Xbox Live, with Microsoft hoping the service will boast more than 1,000 by the end of the year. But the question is, will any of them be any good?
Certainly the first batch don’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm. JellyCar is described as being “about driving a squishy car through squishy worlds, trying to reach the exit.” Wow, sounds great.
While the PS3 has a whole host of big exclusives lined up for the coming year, including Metal Gear Solid 4, Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII, Killzone 2, and Tekken 6, the Xbox 360 has Gears Of War 2, and games like JellyCar.
This move to give gaming back to the masses may have some merits but I don’t think it’s really what Microsoft need to be focussing on right now, with the Xbox 360 heading in the direction of a definite third place in this generation of consoles.
Source: http://blorge.com/2008/02/22/microsoft%e2%80%99s-xbox-live-xna-plans-worthwhile-or-worthless/
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Related articles on the web:
...At the Games Developers Conference on Wednesday, Microsoft outlined the plan to open Xbox Live up to budding games developers, by allowing anyone using the company’s XNA Game Studio software to create a game and then be made available ...
http://gamer.blorge.com/2008/02/22/microsofts-xbox-live-xna-plans-worthwhile-or-worthless/
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