GDC08: Microsoft brings XNA together with Live

by Dustin Burg { Feb 20th 2008 at 2:00PM }

Microsoft just announced plans to bridge the gap between the XNA development community with the Xbox Live community by allowing XNA games to be tested, tried and shared over Xbox Live. This new service will be rolled out "soon" and will allow Live members to access, rate, review and play new community created XNA Arcade games which will greatly increase the XBLA's current library. And, as a sampling of what's to come when the service debuts, Microsoft has just placed seven beta versions of XNA created games onto the XBLA so that the developers can get important feedback about their projects. Games including JellyCar, Little Gamers, TriLinea, RocketBall, ProximityHD, Culture and our personal love, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. Now THIS is what we call user created content. Bravo!

Tags: culture, dishwasher-dead-samurai, gdc08, gdc08fanboy, jellycar, little-gamers, proximityhd, rocketball, trilinea, xbla, xna

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

mattclarkie @ Feb 20th 2008 2:07PM

Will they be free and more importantly will they have achievements?

Mighty Healthy @ Feb 20th 2008 2:11PM

if the game isn't finished, WHY WOULD IT HAVE ACHIEVEMENTS!!!

Mighty Healthy @ Feb 20th 2008 2:12PM

By the way, this is an awesome development, one that I was hoping for.

Arnie @ Feb 20th 2008 2:25PM

For someone who just started mucking around on XNA (no game programming experience but have some coding exp) I am glad for this development. I see this helping the small guy very much esp when it comes to polishing and becoming a better coder over all. I am sure there will be many gamers out there who would want to try out new stuff all the time.

For people who are complaining 95% games will be bad yes thats true but then imagine getting that one game right and you helped make it better. Thats pure gold IMO.

Digital Limit @ Feb 20th 2008 2:28PM

Well, that's a step in the right direction!

I imagine these games will be free given the nature of a beta, and that they'll lack achievements if only because the retail product needs all the illusion of polish it can get. My only worry is that developers will limit these versions of their games, making them glorified trial versions. I hope for the sake of the service as a form of entertainment that it doesn't end up being really limited. I want to *play* these games, not just test them for free.

Neuromancer @ Feb 20th 2008 2:30PM

Any idea when these 7 games are going to be unleashed onto XBLA?

ZEBRA NINER @ Feb 20th 2008 2:30PM

This should have been implemented a long time ago... BUT, I'm really happy it's on the way! Very awesome! I know that the community has got to have some great ideas and I can't wait to see them!

Jonah Falcon @ Feb 20th 2008 3:32PM

Functions as full release demos - first taste's free kid. :p

Neuromancer @ Feb 20th 2008 2:40PM

Disregard, according to Joystiq they're already up.

Digital Limit @ Feb 20th 2008 2:43PM

Whoa, they're up on Xbox Live right now? Wouldn't that require a dashboard update, or are they only available for XNA members?

Digital Limit @ Feb 20th 2008 2:46PM

"Microsoft has *just* placed seven beta versions of XNA created games onto the XBLA so that the developers can get important feedback about their projects."

Heh, disregard what I said, too.

Weird that they'd just throw them up there. Are they in their own XNA category? And how about the supposed feedback and rating? Is that just not possible right now, until a future update?

SadisticHam @ Feb 20th 2008 2:50PM

£30 says it's America only.

mattclarkie @ Feb 20th 2008 2:59PM

I am going to check now, but I feat that is true.

mattclarkie @ Feb 21st 2008 4:04AM

They are in the UK, but you only get 17days of them. Plus the games seem very incomplete. But what do we really expect.

Digital Limit @ Feb 20th 2008 3:04PM

"Free trials of these community created games should be available on Xbox Live "immediately" according to Satchell."

Aw, they *are* trials. I guess I should have known.

schiavonir @ Feb 20th 2008 3:10PM

I am all in favor of this advancement for XNA. This will get great.

I wonder how Microsoft is going to handle copyright infringement. This is going to be a great vehicle for free/cheap cloned games and every game developer is going to be trying to protect their own intellectual property. Will the owners/makers of Tetris be able to ask MS to pull down Tetris clones? What happens when a guy puts up his version of Monopoly and then gets sued by Hasbro? Is that going to scare other garage developers away?

I know people develop cloned versions of popular games all the time, but it tends to be scattered all over the internet, but this is something new - an approved, managed, and financed channel for delivery of newly developed content. I just hope the pileup of lawsuits doesn't kill it.

Tony @ Feb 20th 2008 3:23PM

II would guess they'd just handle it like any service similar to this does... I mean, this is basically a YouTube for games, in a sense. So MS is told, they take it down and that's that. I imagine after repeat violations they'll just remove the maker's account entirely.

I would hope that's what they'd do, anyway. It'd make everyone happy and not hurt much.

Tony @ Feb 20th 2008 3:24PM

Also, are these even up yet? I sure don't see them.

Jonah Falcon @ Feb 20th 2008 3:33PM

Not yet. And those games were at Dream Build Play.

iHomer @ Feb 20th 2008 3:44PM

WOW There not in Canada apparently because I cannot find them.

Jomolungma @ Feb 20th 2008 3:47PM

What about system integrity? The way it sounds you can just throw the game up there. Isn't MSFT concerned that a bug in one of those games could do some harm to the integrity of the console? After all, XBLA games have a certification process they go through. Also, not to be the bearer of bad news, but I can see a lot of interest for this in the hacking community - someone somewhere will try to exploit the 360 for homebrew through XNA.

Conda @ Feb 20th 2008 4:45PM

the XNA platform requires pure managed code, there is no unmanaged native code running so there is little security risk to the machine

todd @ Feb 20th 2008 4:05PM

Trails... they are NOT free.

DomoBraden @ Feb 20th 2008 4:28PM

I have two questions about this:

1.) Will we needs to pay the Creator's Club fees in order to distribute our games? (I assume so, but hopefully they'll lower the price a bit.)

2.) Will we be able to sell our games over the service, and if so what percentage of the income will we get? (I'm guessing we'll be able to sell them considering the demos were described as "FREE trials".)

Killer @ Feb 20th 2008 5:58PM

For everyone asking where they are:

You need to DL:
XNA Creators Club Game Launcher

(You will need this launcher to access the free community games which are now available.)
Its up now, but I have no clue where to find the launcher. In the Community Bar on arcade perhaps?