Still no Xbox Live support in XNA

I see while I was on vacation that the XNA Studio Express was released, but still doesn't include any Xbox Live support. Considering that they seem to be fostering a "farm system" of development shops, where product would be distributed by way of Live anyway, I can't for the life of me figure out why they aren't figuring out this support. Who is really that interested in developing games you can't play with other people?

8 Comments

  • Jeff,
    I believe this is coming in the summer.

    Shahn

  • First of all, consider that it is a 1.0 product. Not only that, it was put together in a very short amount of time. It is a revolutionary product that hasn't had a direct competitor in any modern consoles.

    Lastly, consider the security issues they have to tackle to open up this venue. They have to pretty much guarantee that XNA can't be used as an attack vector on the 360 or else XNA could be dead in the water. Considering that they pretty much did it in 6 months, having to solve all those security problems would bloat out the schedule. And I would rather they release when they did and start building the community now rather than wait longer until all the features were addressed. Progressive releases is the way to go here.

    Not only that, but even without XBox Live support in XNA, it is still a VERY cool product. I for one (and MANY others judging from the reaction XNA has been getting) am interested in writing games for the 360 even if it doesn't include networking support. I can wait for 2.0 for that functionality. I think you're focus on XBox Live missing from XNA is missing the point.

  • Jeff, they did the whole product in 8 months - go figure! Amazing work.

    Yep, they could have done what you wanted and shipped later; and done features another 10 people wanted and shipped this time 2007 even :-)

    This is a new trend in software development Jeff: Ship early, ship often. Read up on it ;-)

  • I don't understand these kinds of responses. I'm supposed to just thank my lucky stars they put out a product even though it doesn't serve the needs I have?

    Knock yourself out if you want to develop with it, but every great idea I can get behind is online. That's where gaming is right now. "Read up on it."

  • What I don't get, AT ALL, is why this only installs on systems with the C# Express edition, but doesn't support us REAL progammers that paid for the full Dev Studio... that's just plain insulting and stupid.

    I am NOT going to install C# Express (and then another 2 hour SP1 install!)

  • A game without networking is called pac-man.

    Hooray for MS and XNA. But, until networking it's still rated with the atari 2600.

    When networking comes out, the following will be 10 fold. Why leave the pc to make dumbed down games like castlevania.

    I like XNA and its very easy, but MS is asking for backlash, if it thinks they can offer us potatoes and not the meat.

    My thoughts.
    Nick




  • I'd say it's not that bad. First, most people can now start working on the single player part of their game, even local multiplayer (4 controllers...). Once that works they can polish the game while waiting for live support.

  • Well, it IS an 1.0 product. But a Microsoft 1.0 product. That means that it's a 0.001a product by any other company standards.

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