Microsoft planning "YouTube" for games

User-created games are nothing new, but now that they've got a nice Web 2.0 buzzword to glom onto, maybe they can amount to something. Microsoft is developing a new app to allow hobbyists to build their very own playable titles for Xbox Live. The program, called XNA Game Studio Express, will cost $99 a year, and will be available for Windows XP and Vista. Apparently the toolset is a heavily trimmed down version of the one available to actual developers, and will still require at least basic programming skills, but users will own their work. Peter Moore calls it "our first step of creating a YouTube for videogames." He also added "I'd love to send a royalty cheque to a kid," but we'll believe that when we see it. It doesn't sound like anything incredibly complicated will be possible with the system, but if YouTube video bloggers are any indication, you don't need snazzy effects -- or necessarily talent -- to make it big on the Internet.

[JinKazama @ Aug 14th 2006 12:14PM]

I was really excited reading this until the $99/year subscription fee...and the toolset being "heavily trimmed down"...

[Das @ Aug 14th 2006 12:20PM]

I think this is going about it the wrong way, the beauty of youtube is that anyone can make and post their own movies, as well as view other peoples movies, for free. By making this cost a significant amount of money, microsoft is really limiting the scope of the games produced

[J S @ Aug 14th 2006 12:21PM]

They should license the Xbox for HDTV manufacturers so they can sell integrated units with Xbox live built into the HDTV set. Zune should be able to be plugged into the HDTV as well for play and playback.

[Enzo @ Aug 14th 2006 12:27PM]

#2, that is the worst idea I've ever heard.

[Poopmaster @ Aug 14th 2006 12:28PM]

I agree with Das. Making it cost money shows that they just don't get YouTube. They're still trapped in the old "Embrace, extend, extinguish" paradigm.

[Jeremy @ Aug 14th 2006 12:31PM]

Yet another attempt by our friends in Redmond to become even wealthier.

[fucter @ Aug 14th 2006 12:31PM]

actually #2 has a good idea

[Nathan Ziarek @ Aug 14th 2006 12:33PM]

I think the toolset is free for development on Windows. If you want to test/debug your game on the XBox360, you'll need to pay the $99 for entrance into the "creators club."

If the licensing is such that you own your work, then this is almost exactly what people have been hacking into their systems, and should make them very happy. If MS pushes it even further, and takes a % cut from each game sold (for bandwidth and storage) and has a system in place to send royalty checks, it really does open the world up to indie developers. I'd pay a few bucks for n on my Xbox. All told, those are the games I am most interested in...

[Omega @ Aug 14th 2006 12:34PM]

I kind of like this idea. This way, perhaps those college students for game programming that don't have their degree yet can scrape up a bit of cash for themselves. I really like this idea, and although it may seem unfair that you have to have at least basic programming skills, (at least at first blush) really think about it. If you weren't programming it, what would the interface look like? Drag-and-drop? What would the quality of games be if all you could do was pick from a few preset situations and perameters? I think it's a good idea, but they should probably lower the charge a bit, as that is going to be a turnoff for potential users of this game. However, an astronomically high price point didn't bother the PS3! That costs more than several payments on your car, and yet every moron 14-year-old GTA fanboy is going to steal his mom's purse and go out and buy one on launch day. Perhaps Microsoft is just taking a leaf from Sony's outrageously-overpriced book, however unlikely that is.

[Nathan Ziarek @ Aug 14th 2006 12:34PM]

Hmm... the link didn't stay intact, and searching for "n" might cause problems :-)

http://www.harveycartel.org/metanet/n.html

[Wendy @ Aug 14th 2006 12:50PM]

the company was planning to launch an advertising campaign to publicise it “imminently”. Funding for the venture will come from a $2 billion pot set aside for its next-generation Windows Live services

[AT39 @ Aug 14th 2006 12:59PM]

I think that this is really cool. Now a bunch of my friends and I have had some ideas rolling around in our heads, and now we have a much easier way to distribute it.

Even for $99/year for xBox live, it is a good deal.

[jabbertrack @ Aug 14th 2006 1:54PM]

"I think this is going about it the wrong way, the beauty of youtube is that anyone can make and post their own movies, as well as view other peoples movies, for free. By making this cost a significant amount of money, microsoft is really limiting the scope of the games produced"

Youtube isn't a charity service friend blog commenter... do you think they just have a website out of the kindness of their hearts?

If you call $100 a significant amount of money then you probably have never looked into getting a game created and published.

Keep in mind the $100 is only if you want to see your creation run on the 360... doing all this on the PC is FREE and any code you create with XNA will work so you could make all the games you want for 360 without ever buying into the program.

[Zach @ Aug 14th 2006 1:57PM]

"I think this is going about it the wrong way, the beauty of youtube is that anyone can make and post their own movies, as well as view other peoples movies, for free. By making this cost a significant amount of money, microsoft is really limiting the scope of the games produced"

Ok, first off. Microsofts investment in XNA and Games for Windows has set them back considerably in the money pool. And Im sure everyone knows that in the world we live in anyhing free is sure to be a piece of junk.

Secondly, you can build and design your own game to your hearts content, but, it wont be released unless Microsoft apporves it. Yet another stepping stone.


"Yet another attempt by our friends in Redmond to become even wealthier."

Well, if you'd rather spend the time and money to back yourself by a publisher, oh wait, you've never created a well rounded game before. Whos going to willingly publish your game only to find that it will be a flop?

Microsoft is trying to open up the game industry which is what it needs, yet, you all frown down upon it?

[James @ Aug 14th 2006 2:00PM]

Hah. With the development from the modding community, M$ knew the best way to compete. They knew the modding community would break them down, and they probably could never detect the firmware hack, so they released this, hah. Well, no back-up games for the rest of yous with this. M$ is still anti-backup(/piracy), and won't allow their tools to be that powerful. X360 is still a no-go with me. They can coat it anyway they want, it still sucks.

[potato @ Aug 14th 2006 2:07PM]

Yay for more ignorant trolls!

"the modding community would break them down"... as opposed to, oh, *every other console that has ever existed*? Modding has always been a bonus for PC gamers, but at the same time every console has always lived just fine in spite of it.

You act as if this is a response to the firmware hacks; sorry to disappoint, friend, but having been in the indie dev trenches for quite a while, I can tell you that XNA, as well as the XNA Framework were in the works *well* before the Xbox360 was even RELEASED. I was talking to tool devs and other middleware developers about XNA at least a good year before the 360's hit the streets. This is a carefully calculated plan, not some pathetic attempt to cut piracy.

[Jonathan Keim @ Aug 14th 2006 2:11PM]

cool. I sent this in this morning. It took a little while for them to put up though

[Matt @ Aug 14th 2006 2:45PM]

How can you guys think that $99/yr. for this is too expensive? What are you, 12? That's like $8 a month; approximately the cost of a fast-food meal for two.

If someone has something worthwhile to produce and can't lay out less than 30 cents a day to do it, then I think it's probably something the world won't miss terribly much in the first place.

[jebo @ Aug 14th 2006 3:20PM]

You could make the argument that youtube costs money also....it costs money to buy a PC, webcam, digital video camera, etc.

However, the difference is obviously that you most likely already have a PC and webcam or video camera for other uses, whereas this $99 toolkit is only used for building homebrew games.

I can't wait to see some simple yet fun games from the community though. The possibilities are good, it's just up to us to decide if spending the time+money required to make a decent game is worth it.

[Dirk @ Aug 14th 2006 4:10PM]

Remember, this will eventually allow people to play these games for free, without the subscription. One of the MS devs mentioned that this is in the works, but initially you will need a subscription to play other peoples games.

They just haven't ironed out the XBLA distribution method for this yet.

[AC @ Aug 14th 2006 4:11PM]

MS dropped the ball with this one!

In order to play someone else's game you have to download their source code and other resources, build the game on your PC and then download it to your Xbox 360.

Hardly as easy as watching a video on YouTube plus you don't have control over other people seeing your source code.

[Loque @ Aug 14th 2006 5:42PM]

$99 a year is $33 for 3 people, and less than $30 for 5.

I bet they aren't aiming this at single person ventures.

[Panther_V @ Aug 14th 2006 11:30PM]

Give it some time to develop , Microsoft will fix the distribution issue by next. This is just the start and if it gets suppor then Microsoft will start doing adding more.

[greenlight @ Aug 15th 2006 4:56AM]

I'm just hoping this is actually a clone of Klik-n-Play. That would be so great.

[STICH666 @ Aug 17th 2006 12:06AM]

How much will these homebrew games cost. I'm hopeing that the deveplepers of these games will have the choice to resonably price them between $0.01 and $5 where 10 ms points = $0.01 and 400 ms points = $5.

[Pikachelsea @ Aug 17th 2006 2:19PM]

"How can you guys think that $99/yr. for this is too expensive? What are you, 12? That's like $8 a month; approximately the cost of a fast-food meal for two."

Well heck, why don't they just make it $199 per year then? Why not $3999? Compared to the cost of actually publishing a game it would still be a bargain!!

I'm glad that $100 bucks is a drop in the bucket to you, but considering it's 1/3rd the cost of a basic 360, it's not chump change. And I still think it's amusing for MS to call this a service similar to YouTube, and then charge money for it.

[Trav @ Aug 21st 2006 9:56PM]

So, If I get this program, I can create my own game. How do you create the setting and characters and all the detail. Sounds pretty hard if you ask me. Plus, If I buy this program I can play my game I create. You just have to pay to put your game on live.

[shay @ Sep 6th 2006 2:29PM]

talking about youtube, here is my new free video toolbar : http://www.ilovevideoz.com

[sathyan @ Sep 26th 2008 6:24AM]

YouTube as a Gaming Platform !

Our weekend workshop shows a new way of interactive story telling in online videos. We created a game (game alike) in YouTube which can be used for ebranding. Just a simple idea! we try finding fun in work!!

Why did we do it ?
The share of global internet users who visit YouTube is more than 16 percent(taken from online sources), which is roughly 1,068,179,246 everyday. A huge user base like this can be effectively used to grow your business through proper eBranding. The text and the banner ads lose their value in this context, when the streaming video becomes the center of attraction.


Our research shows the branding videos with interactive story telling features retains user's interest for a longer duration. The interactive features in the videos gives immersive branding value. We are currently engaged in a research on this new advertising media which leverages YouTube as a gaming medium. Advertising through this medium guarantees more relevant brand experiences for the consumers.

Interactive story/game link - http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=4ahyHfNqquQ
Hexolabs' channel - http://in.youtube.com/user/hexolabs

We would love to hear your valuable feedback. Please don't forget to rate the video.