The ZBuffer : Live On Windows for XNA?

Once again its nothing specific and the news came from no where so I am probably misquoting but you will get the general idea...

One of the Microsoft talks on Tuesday was 'live for windows' - if you missed the news this is essentially XBox live for windows. There was no mention of ANYTHING managed or XNA based for the entire talk, not a surprise really since this API doesn't go public until June. Then right at the very end someone asked a question about using the API from other game dev tools like Flash. The answer was fairly boring, they didn't know if their API was possible to call from Flash but unless they could secure things properly the answer was no it wouldn't work with other tools. The almost as an after though he said (something like) 'Well unless you want to use Game Studio express, that will be coming soon'. Of course the BIG disclaimer here before any of the MS guys rip me a new one is that my quote is from memory so that's probably not EXACTLY what he said. But the gist of the statement was that Live For Windows (and dare we hope 360!) is coming to a future XNA version, or at least its being thought of.

Now before you all go getting terribly excited and planning your multiplayer games you need to know that Live for Windows participation isn't as simple as calling a few APIs. The coding looked pretty straightforward and hopefully the XNA team will make is even simpler. But to play in the environment requires registration and certification which just like 360 developers requires some cost recovery and also that you follow certain standards to make sure you pass certification (go find the Games for Windows docs and see the sort of things you should think about). He didn't have a price for that but his vague statement made it sound like it was in the thousands so your game needs to be commercial, or you need rich parents.

After attending the XNA talk today its pretty obvious that this is a 'being considered' rumour and not something that is available any time soon. Or possibly he was talking about the special version that is going to be used by the 1st XBLA XNA game


Search ZBuffer News Articles Downloads Links FAQ Blogs/People Games Applications Technology Game Engines Tutorials Books Game Dev Tools Resources Forums About Advertise Contact ZMan Privacy Partners Ad Survey	Live On Windows for XNA? Once again its nothing specific and the news came from no where so I am probably misquoting but you will get the general idea... One of the Microsoft talks on Tuesday was 'live for windows' - if you missed the news this is essentially XBox live for windows. There was no mention of ANYTHING managed or XNA based for the entire talk, not a surprise really since this API doesn't go public until June. Then right at the very end someone asked a question about using the API from other game dev tools like Flash. The answer was fairly boring, they didn't know if their API was possible to call from Flash but unless they could secure things properly the answer was no it wouldn't work with other tools. The almost as an after though he said (something like) 'Well unless you want to use Game Studio express, that will be coming soon'. Of course the BIG disclaimer here before any of the MS guys rip me a new one is that my quote is from memory so that's probably not EXACTLY what he said. But the gist of the statement was that Live For Windows (and dare we hope 360!) is coming to a future XNA version, or at least its being thought of. Now before you all go getting terribly excited and planning your multiplayer games you need to know that Live for Windows participation isn't as simple as calling a few APIs. The coding looked pretty straightforward and hopefully the XNA team will make is even simpler. But to play in the environment requires registration and certification which just like 360 developers requires some cost recovery and also that you follow certain standards to make sure you pass certification (go find the Games for Windows docs and see the sort of things you should think about). He didn't have a price for that but his vague statement made it sound like it was in the thousands so your game needs to be commercial, or you need rich parents. After attending the XNA talk today its pretty obvious that this is a 'being considered' rumour and not something that is available any time soon. Or possibly he was talking about the special version that is going to be used by the 1st XBLA XNA game Updated 3/8/2007 1:30:00 PM by Zman