Last year, Microsoft used the annual Game Developers Conference to put on a show, complete with Epic Games designer Cliff Bleszinski using a fake chainsaw to tear his way through a wall in the announcement of Gears of War 2. This year, crazily enough, Microsoft is using the Game Developers Conference to focus on the game developer. That includes everyone from the top dogs down to the little hobbyists with a new Dream-Build-Play competition, an update to Games Studio Express, and an improved professional development kit.
If you thought game makers have eked every last bit of juice out of the Xbox 360, Microsoft is about to give them the tools needed to take at least one more step. A new piece of debugging hardware, called the Xbox 360 Development and Test Kit hardware is on its way to professional developers soon. This new piece of hardware has 1 GB of RAM inside of it -- more than a retail Xbox 360. This will give developers some extra room to work with while making a game that will allow them to push the limits of the Xbox 360 memory while still running debugging software that would normally eat up space on the dev kit.
If you thought game makers have eked every last bit of juice out of the Xbox 360, Microsoft is about to give them the tools needed to take at least one more step. A new piece of debugging hardware, called the Xbox 360 Development and Test Kit hardware is on its way to professional developers soon. This new piece of hardware has 1 GB of RAM inside of it -- more than a retail Xbox 360. This will give developers some extra room to work with while making a game that will allow them to push the limits of the Xbox 360 memory while still running debugging software that would normally eat up space on the dev kit.
Microsoft is also announcing a third Dream-Build-Play design competition. The last two produced games like CarneyVale: Showtime, Weapon of Choice, and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. For the 2009 competition, Microsoft is offering a cash prize and the opportunity to win an Xbox Live Arcade publishing contract. Beginning April 6, interested developers can submit their unique games. Winners will be announced this fall.
Expect those games to be amongst the best community games yet. In fact, you should expect all community games to get a boost in quality soon. Microsoft is preparing to release the next version of its free development tool, XNA Game Studio 3.1. New features being added include Avatar support, video playback, and support for Xbox Live parties. Don't be surprised if you download an XNA Community game in the near future and see your Avatar waving back at you. In our demo of the new features, Microsoft even showed us some free animation rigging tools that will be made available so that, using XNA game creation tools, anybody can create custom Avatar animations for their games.
Professional developers (i.e. not those making Community games) will also find new tools for downloadable content support.
"The level of innovation and the number of submissions we receive each year to Dream-Build-Play has increased exponentially because the development community is becoming increasingly familiar with the XNA Game Studio," XNA General Manager Boyd Multerer said. "I'm really looking forward to seeing what developers are able to create with the latest Live features and updated tools at their disposal."
Expect to see Games Studio Express 3.1 and its new features roll out this spring or summer.
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