XNA and XBox 360: Not until you pony up some ca$h!!

26. November 2007
Comments (3)

I recently got an XBox 360; and until I got one I didn't fully realize what all its features are. This is a really sweet system! So, naturally I downloaded the XNA Game Studio Express to check out what's all possible with building homebrew games for the 360.

After registering my gamertag with the XNA Creators Club and installing XNA Game Studio Express on my PC, I took the following steps:

  1. Go on XBox Live Marketplace and download the Free XNA Game Launcher.
  2. Run the XNA Game Launcher so I can register XNA Game Studio Express with my 360 to put the starterkit game on there and play around.
  3. Ok, I guess I need to get an XNA Creators Club Membership. Um.. Ok, what is that?
  4. Crap! WTF! You have to pay for it!!

Yeah, WTF!!! This is really crappy of MS to do! All I want to do is play around with XNA Game Studio and my 360 and they want me to either pay $50 for four months access or $100 for a year access. In order to even play around with putting a homebrew game using XNA on your 360 you need to pay a reoccurring subscription fee! There's no way I'm going to pay a fee that HIGH to just play around.

What in the world is Microsoft thinking?!? They have the best game system and they are providing an easy way for the average developer to write games for it. This is something that will only make the 360 even more popular. But, then they go and make all the benefit they could get from XNA on the 360 and eliminate it virtually completely by charging such a high fee.

Here's my suggestion: Make it either FREE or a one time fee of say $25 to be able to put your homebrew games on the 360. Then allow developers to pay a larger fee to be able to put their games on DVD or in the Live Arcade so they can sell them to the masses.

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Comments

Damien Guard
Damien Guard
11/27/2007 11:13:00 AM #
The reason for this is simple.

The Xbox 360 is subsidised hardware.

If you were to buy one and play nothing but free XNA games Microsoft would be loosing even more money on the 360.

There is nothing stopping you developing XNA games without paying a fee - you can run them on the PC just fine.

You just can't play them on the 360 without joining and paying the subscription.

[)amien
Chris Pietschmann
Chris Pietschmann
11/27/2007 1:08:00 PM #
I can understand charging to be able to put games on the 360, but not charging that much as a subscription fee. Ok, maybe I could understand charging if I continued to create/play XNA games on the 360, but at least give me some Free time so I can play around and decide if I do want to pay. And, they really need to offer some outlet for developers to eventually distribute their games to the masses.
dag
dag
1/20/2008 3:30:00 PM #
I agree with the sentiment. I've made a fiew XNA games for the PC, when I realized I had to pay so much to run them on MY OWN xbox... I was shocked. Its not cool, not cool at all.

They should make it free to transfer games to your own xbox, but pay to do other things, like share them with friends (which you can't even do - because your friends would have to pay too... wtf??)
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