"MICROSOFT ON LOWERING THE BARRIERS OF CREATIVITY"

GameDaily Biz has published the article "Microsoft on Lowering the Barriers of Creativity" which includes an interview to Microsoft's Chris Satchell (General Manager, Game Developer Group) and Aaron Greenberg (Group Product Manager for Xbox 360 & Xbox Live) at GDC'07, which of course mentions XNA GSE.

From the article: "... With XNA Game Studio Express, it is a different approach. It's not just about modding a game that somebody's made; it's about making your own game. I definitely take your point [because] you need some skill to do it. Now I do think we've made it much easier with XNA Game Studio Express than it's ever been before, but when you add our partner products on top—like what we've done with Garage Games—then you actually have systems like Torque GameBuilder (TGB), which is drag and drop game development. You literally drag pieces in and you drop them. And then we have starter kits, so if you just want to mod an experience you can do that... So imagine if you take TGB and load up a pack and there's all the cool animated things—you just drag and drop them in, say what behavior you want and can start playing a game. And we actually licensed that from Garage Games so if you're a member of the Creator's Club in XNA you get that in your subscription ...".

Read on ...

"BULLET HELL TACTICS": BETA TESTERS WANTED

Kobingo's looking for help in order to beta-test his game: "Bullet Hell Tactics".

So if you want to help the guy just get in touch a.s.a.p. (just read here for details).

Stay tuned to Kobingo's blog for more information.

"NETWORKING/INTERNET WITH SOCKETS" - PART 1(WINDOWS ONLY)

A new tuto has been published on PlasmaFlux site which covers a starting point for networking with XNA, under Windows OS only.

From the site's post: "... Many people have asked “Can I/How do I make internet/network games in XNA” and the replay has been “yes” or “yes but not on the Xbox360 until later”. So I wanted to produce a simple network/internet game & tutorial/explanation to show off how it’s done. I wanted to keep the game simple as not to get people lost between where the game starts/stops and where the networking starts/stops, whilst not making it to simple like string only string messages as games need to send some quite complex information at times ...".

Read on ...