Post by leunas on Dec 13, 2006 23:31:47 GMT -5
Talk about aiming high! Chris Satchell, general manager of Microsoft's game developer group, said the company wants to create a YouTube-style sharing of XNA games. "Think about a Community Arcade, being able to share your own games with the whole community on Xbox Live," said Satchell.
XNA Express is a free download for coding games for Windows and Xbox 360. Well, it's entirely free on Windows, but sharing games and code with other 360 creators via the XNA Creators' Club requires a subscription service. It's also possible to move games directly from Xbox to Xbox. Eventually, however, MS plans to go beyond its territory and into the brave, new worlds we know today as YouTube and MySpace.
Can homebrew games really go that far? Satchell certainly believes so. "If you can give people a way to communicate, to talk about content, to rate it and express what's cool, then you start a virtuous cycle, because more people want to get involved, more people create content and more people comment on it."
He also thinks the venue will be a place where the next Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid) and Toru Iwatani (Pac-Man) will be discovered. Satchell's says "I absolutely believe we will find new stars in this industry from that community. I know publishers will be watching for what's cool and who's doing it."
feeds.feedburner.com/~r/qj/xbox/~3/60938156/76135