(Photo From Kotaku) 

 

 

So I guess before my last post I should have just waited till after the keynote, but alas Kotaku's Live blog of the keynote at GDC gives us this nugget (Chris Satchell, chief XNA Architect speaking):

 

 

I think we will be able to change all of that, starting today.

 

For the first time ever you will be able to have access to community created games through Xbox Live Arcade.

If we are going to unleash this creativity, we need to put the power in the community.

They're going to do that but democratizing game distribution which means: create, submit, peer review and play.

Let's take a look at this pipeline.

Submit: The first part is you have to create your identity. You will have to build your reputation, as your fame grows this is what captures it.

Next you need to tell the community what 's in your game.

Peer Review: It's not going to be us reviewing it's going to be your peers. First they will look for prohibited content.

Play: Ten million people on Xbox Live will be able to play your game through XNA Creators Content.

Now they're showing a couple of games created on XNA.

On to a video of community games.

What they haven't done is explain exactly how it will be delivered to games, my guess is on a blade... Hmmm? Why does that sound so familiar.

Right now you can go to Xbox Live Markketplace and you can download free trials of The Dishwasher and a number of other XNA games. According to the screen behind Satchell it's a free trial of the games.

 

 

So the big announcement WAS the community aspect of it,  Well all I can say is, hell yes.  I have already written 3 games (very simplistic) but I have one really good one that I have been fleshing out in my head over the past 2 or 3 weeks, and it will take some time, but knowing that it won't just be myself and the people who download the source that get to play it (or windows peeps) then that is pretty cool.  I am assuming that there will be some type of content ownership piece to this (not in the copyright sense, but in the 'I want to send a link of my game to all my friends on XBL' sense).

So I think this is pretty sweet honestly.  I hope it doesn't usher in a big wave of large companies pouncing on brilliant game ideas from the hobbyists (because God knows EA needs new ideas), but still this is going to be VERY VERY cool.  And MS is gonna be the largest reaper of the rewards.  If little Jimmy goes and gets an Xbox 360 Arcade and his parent's don't want to pay $60 for an A-list title, then it sounds like he is going to have a world of XNA games to choose from to download, or he can write his own.  Thats a MAJOR selling point in this period of $300+ consoles. 

 

 oh I also just read this tidbit:

 

 

Wouldn't it be great if you could take all of this content mobile.. What if you had a Zune wouldn't it be great if you could take those games with you on your Zune.

 

Well this year you can.

He's showing Zurai a Shump on the Zune. He's controlling the ship with the touch pad. Now he paused the game and pulled up a song to listen to from the Zune while playing the game. Neat integration.

That's only part of it, with XNA Game Studio you can build online multiplayer games for your Zune. You can take games from Windows to Xbox to Zune.

 

 

 Interesting.

 

http://kotaku.com/358723/liveblogging-microsofts-gdc-presser