Custom 360 games

[snakejknight]

I herd about this from a friend at school and decided to look into it. Anyone have an opinion on this?

http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/xb ... -steps-diy

[-Legendary-]

Seems hard.. ;_;

You wouldn't get much with 1 person probably.

[Tural]

Uh, I think you're like, over a year late on this..

[snakejknight]

i wasn't announcing something. i was asking what people thought of it...

[Tural]

I know, I'm simply saying it makes a lot more sense to discuss something when it's new and there's a lot to discuss. I wouldn't make a thread asking what people think of the iPod now, simply for the sake of discussion.

Yeah, you can create games. There's thousands of tutorials, hundreds of contests, and countless other things revolving around it. It's widely publicized. It's great to give users control. It's not something that can really be used to make complex games, but it functions for someone with significant knowledge of such programming and who is interested in arcade-type games.

[CabooseJr]

There is no way I'm gonna pay so much just to get a silly game to work on 360.

[Tural]

Because you're not interested in game development.
This isn't for people who just want to make games. This is for people with the knowledge, skills, and real interest in the field. It's an excellent introduction into game development, and a very good way to get recognition for doing so.

[halo0001]

I think what he means is that he'd rather just program for systems where it is free to do so, such as a modded Psp, or even just the pc, either way id save my hundred bucks and just program in C# for psp.

[Prey]

It stands out because it allows hobbyists to develop games for the xbox 360. Currently though it's still a new-ish system, one that's still being fleshed out. For one you can only currently play the games built for the 360 if you pay the $99 subscription fee, which is obviously not worth it if your not going to do any "developing" (unless you're a real hardcore gamer who just has too =P). But this is something that should be being addressed in 2.0, due for release soon. There's also the fact that as an API (Application Programming Interface) it is still missing a lot of features compared to MDX. Again because it is new.

See in the industry games for Windows are created using the Native language C++ and the API, DirectX. The Xbox 360, also made by Microsoft as we know, runs games built in Native C++ too, and with the same DirectX API (but modified to run on the console instead).

But DirectX and Native C++ are somewhat difficult for the average developer to create games in, as they allow you complete access to everything - meaning that methods usually take longer to write as you've got to keep in mind.. everything ;p

So to combat this, the Managed DirectX (MDX) API was born, which worked in conjunction with the Managed VB, C# and C++ languages. This meant that the boring processes like the cleaning up of objects once they have gone out of scope etc was left to the .Net Framework, so the developer could concentrate on the more important things like rendering the scene, etc.

But now MDX is being phased out (in-fact it has been being for the last 2 years), and to take it's place: The XNA Framework. And because it's the first managed API that allows development on the 360; instant popularity

But the transition from MDX to XNA is not exactly very smooth, yet. This goes back to what I was saying about the XNA framework currently missing a lot of features compared to MDX, like dynamic mesh creation, winForm support, etc.

[/insight]

It's an excellent introduction into game development, and a very good way to get recognition for doing so.

It is indeed experience, as the concepts remain the same. Note though if you really want to get into game development, you need to start practicing with Native C++ and DirectX (which, if you think this is hard, is a nightmare =x).