XBox 360 and you

#41 You know..... I am not a huge 360 fan. However I am a console fan! This would help me realize a dream of mine and develop for a console.

#42 Jean-Pierre, I'm curious why you are not a 360 fan? I've been playing consoles since the Magnavox Odyssey days and I think the 360 is awesome. I especially like the Xbox Live integration and online multiplayer modes. Oh, and the High Def and Dolby Digital are nice too. ;-)

#43 Tech-wise, the 360 is stellar, but aside from XBLA, the games for it have been in the meh range. I have a soft spot for Rare platformers, and so Kameo is my favorite with Dead Rising a distant second. PD0, Prey, DoA4, and Oblivion weren't worth the $35 I paid for them used (though to be fair, PD0, while extremely easy, was worth the $24 I paid new for it).

XBLA, and the development possibilities, make the console. As more games come out it will rise up to its potential. Since it is still early in its lifecycle, it doesn't surprise me that the games aren't that exciting. Or at least not exciting to me.

XBLA and XNA possibilities excite me about the console, though. But that caters to the side of me that frequents GG as opposed to the side that mods GameFAQs/spot.

#44 @Stephen Howe
Managed Quake II

#45 @ David, play PDZ on Perfect Agent or Dark Agent and tell me how easy it was. ;)

#46 I finished it in a day on Perfect Agent. On easy and normal it was impossible to die. Quite literally, you could do incredibly stupid things and have a million enemies blasting you...and not die. It was like playing on God mode. It was really, really odd. I haven't played it in DA, though. PA was where normal to hard should be. It was a pretty shooter but not nearly as difficult as the first one on PA. At least that was my take and I suck at FPS games. Prey was harder, though not significantly. PD0 was much prettier, though!

EDIT:
I probably did exaggerate with the word extremely, but considering how crappy I am at FPS games, I can't imagine an "okay" player having any problem with PA in PD0.

#47 @David Blake:

FYI, Managed Quake II is not managed. They just compile the C++ code with hooks into .NET, which let them add managed libraries to the functions.

it's pretty cool tech, but just to be clear, it isnt a managed app per-say.

#48 Oh damn! You're right, and the sad thing is that I even knew that. I just didn't remember that I knew it until you mentioned it. That was a big topic back when it was released and they made sure that people at QuakeSrc knew what they had and hadn't done.

Urp!

#49 @ Dan

There are several reasons I am not a 360 fan. However, I am not saying that the technology behind the 360 isn't amazing. I do agree that Live experience is HUGE step forward for any game platform.

My concern primarily is with the amount of good games. It is not compelling enough just yet, when Fable 2 come out, then maybe.

:o)

#50 Don't forget that Torque X and XNA are not for XBox360 only. I think it will be as cool to use them just for Windows games :) The XBox 360 feature is a bonus though ^^

#51 The Xbox360 is really shaping up to be a great system. I've had one for about 6 months and I'm totally happy with the purchase. If XNA and TorqueX will allow me to built demos and test them on 360, please sign me up. $99 per year is pocket change compared to what standard dev kits cost. If XNA lives up to even half the hype, it will totally revolutionize game development. Even more-so than the new market opened from XboxLiveArcade.

XNA is not just for hobbyist developers. It is targeted at the smaller dev teams that may not have as much funding as the big-dawgs. This eliminates a major roadblock for getting a game on a console. With the tools available, you could literally develop an Xbox360 game for free. Even if you dont have an Xbox, you can still develop and test on a PC. This is amazing that Microsoft is giving all this away for free. Then we have TorqueX, which will make XNA development much easier for people.

I realize you need a subscription to test your games, but what a deal. $99 a year to play your own games on 360 and play other peoples homebrew games. Do you understand how brilliant this idea is? Microsoft has basically made a mod-chip for their own console. How much time & money do homebrewers spend on a hacking the system, risking to destory the hardware and void the warrenty. More than $99 a year, I expect. This is a whole nother market unto itself. Then you have to think about people who may concider getting a subscription just to play all the cool homebrew games that will come out after people learn the platform. This is going to be huge. I hope it lives up to the hype.

#52 @Andres Hernandez: I totally agree! If XNA can bring us everything it seems to promise then Microsoft has made some genious steps in one:

- C# will become more important to the gaming industry
- they will get many great and innovative games and game ideas from independant game developers
- they will get all the sales from people that were waiting for homebrew consoles like the GP2X or Andre La Mothes new Hydra thing
- Windows and XBox 360 will both benefit from XNA because coming XBox 360 exclusive titles can easily be ported to Windows and Windows titles can easily be ported to XBox 360 (that means more games which lead to more customers; that principle has already worked for Playstation and Playstation 2)

Let us hope that everything will come as we and Microsoft wish.

#53 Hello to all

a quick question here.

I dont understand the connection of Torque with the XBox 360 in terms of graphics.
How can the low old quality Torque (even TSE) graphics be compared with the next gen games that we see in Xbox360? Does the whole XNA thing mean that we would use the Torque Engine and tools to develop low quality graphics games that are compatible with XBox360??
Excuse me if i'm wrong.

Thanks

Exones

#54 You have to have good artists to create good content. And you have to have good software engineers to utilize them with the rendering system in any system. TSE is competant in the tech arena as are other shader engines.

#55 If i had many good artists and many good software engineers then i would be EA games or something and i wouldnt be here asking questions in the forum.
Is your answear yes then?

Does the whole XNA thing mean that we would use the Torque Engine and tools to develop low quality graphics games that are compatible with XBox360??
When they say in XNA that they'll give us fantastic tools and proper starter kits, do they mean the Torque engine or TSE and the FPS starter kit....lol

Thanks

#56 I'm not sure why you're fixated on low quality graphics. I'm sure with a suitable lack of artisitic ability even the Unreal 3 engine could churn out some nasty looking games.

Have you seen the latest .plan for TSE? The screenshots in that look stunning.

#57 It is not my fault that you can't find an artist or a team. There are a number of them out there that are willing to work on a quality game, as long as you have a quality game and something to put into it. Anyone who has played mods know that "high-quality AAA industry engines" can make crappy looking games. Of course, if you can't put a team together for portfolio fodder, you also won't be working at EA anytime soon.

#58 Don't forget that even with a lack of good artists a game can be rather nice looking. Marble Blast Ultra is a perfect example!

#59 Don't forget that even with a lack of good artists a game can be rather nice looking. Marble Blast Ultra is a perfect example!

#60 Are you saying that GG doesn't have good artists?
I dont know about that Tim Aste guy, he's kind of shady, but Joe Maruschek (whos last name I'm pretty sure I cant spell) is a damn good artist. I dont know the names of any of the other artists on the team. They dont visit irc.