Yesterday it was announced that Microsoft would make Xbox 360 development tools available to hobbyist programmers. The XNA Game Studio Express development tools will be available as a free download. Those wanting to share their creations with other homebrewers will have to pony up $99 to join what is currently being called, the Creator’s Club.
Even with the distribution restrictions, this is a dream come true! I’ve wanted a chance to write games for consoles for a long time now, but the development kit costs were just too high for this to be practical. So I’ve turned much of my attention to web games, which has meant a very slow road learning Flash. Not that Flash is horrible, but as a traditionally trained programmer, Flash is a bit of a paradigm shift that my brain simply has not embraced as quickly as I would have liked. Being more familiar with Microsoft development tools in general, I think I can get my head around the XNA tools in short order.
This is a good move for Microsoft too which really needs to do everything it can to fill the Xbox 360 games pipeline. There’s little doubt that some of those homebrew creations will make it to the big leagues and could very well become the next big thing that sells systems. So I applaud Microsoft for embracing the homebrew community rather than pushing it away. Even with Sony’s well publicized problems getting the Playstation 3 launched, Microsoft is going to need all of the help it can get.