First Xbox 360 Community Games to hit Live "immediately"

It wasn't all Zune gaming at Microsoft's GDC keynote this morning -- a lot of time was spent discussing Community Games, the new official name for XNA-based games. Amateur devs will get "creator identities" along with their gamertags, and Live members can rate, grade, and discuss your efforts. Of course, as we've heard, games can move from the 360 to PCs to second-gen Zunes, which is definitely pretty cool, but it'll be interesting to see what that means for devs who want to try and take advantage of the 360's horsepower -- will they be restrict their code to a specific platform? While we wait for those answers, it looks like we'll be able to get a taste of what Community Games have to offer right away -- Microsoft announced that the first seven XNA-based games are available immediately, with an open beta to begin in spring and full-on launch by the end of the year. List of games after the jump -- but what are you doing reading this when you could be playing?

Update: We just tried downloading RocketBall and the process is totally different than you'd expect. First you have to download the XNA Launcher, which is under New Arrivals in the Marketplace blade -- but you don't need a membership, so skip that, and the XNA ad that displays points you to the wrong thing, so ignore that as well. Then head over to the Games blade and select Games Library, but don't open the Launcher, cause it'll just kick you out. Instead, press Y to view the list of games and download one. So far the "YouTube of games" seems a bit convoluted -- hopefully the next Dashboard update makes this all a bit simpler.

• "JellyCar." Created by Walaber from the United States, this game is about driving a squishy car through squishy worlds, trying to reach the exit.
• "Little Gamers." This is a 2-D high definition action side-scroller based on the famous Web comic "Little Gamers" created by Loic Dansart, a 24-year-old software developer from Belgium.
• "The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai." An intense 2-D action platform game created by James Silva from the United States, "The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai" has a unique, highly stylized look and fast and fluid action.
• "TriLinea." This puzzle game created by Edison S. Prata Jr., Renato Pelizzari da Silva and Davi da Silva Prata from Brazil mixes fast-paced action with strategy.
• "RocketBall." Created by Tyler Wanlass, Patrick Murty and Todd Barrons of the United States, this neighborhood game of dodgeball explodes onto the street with fast-paced multiplayer action.
• "ProximityHD." This game, created by Brian Cable from the United States, takes the essence of strategy games -- battles for control of territory and armies -- and distills it down to a simple, easy-to-understand set of rules for casual players.
• "Culture." Created by independent game development company Hidden Path Entertainment from the United States, "Culture" contains challenging games and puzzles based on beautiful flowers.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 21st 2008 1:53AM]

Another nice live addition, just a pity that MS refuses to launch Live in South Africa. I have the bandwidth and I have the money, yet I need to purchase my subscription from an online shop, as I can't do it from my console. I also cannot download half of what is on marketplace, as it is not available in my lcoation. This two years after MS said that should launch in a few months, after they settle matters with Telkom.
We can logon, we can play arcade games, jippeee, we just can't play online due to lack of support and servers in SA. Thanks MS, once again showing you don't really care about SA

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 21st 2008 2:01AM]

oh i'm pumped about this!

we've only been waiting... ohh? a year and a half for this!

[ZeroCorpse Posted Feb 21st 2008 2:03AM]

Hmm..

"YouTube" of video games, huh? This could be a bad thing.

I mean, for every game that's a "Chocolate Rain" or "Chad Vader" or "Dramatic Chimpmunk" will there be a few dozen impostes, parodies of the originals, and just plain rip-offs? And even though we may get a "Star Wars Kid" every now and then, we may also get a "2 Girls 1 Cup" and all the reactions to go with it.

I worry.

[Jomolungma Posted Feb 21st 2008 7:24AM]

Always a possibility, but I'm willing to make the tradeoff to find those few hidden gems. The alternative is to leave it to larger developers and their extended schedules/massive marketing machines to feed me mostly what I've been playing for years. If XNA can bring more creativity and innovation to the console gaming space, I'm willing to give it a try even if it only happens in one out of every 100 games that gets posted to the system.

Hopefully, like YouTube and other user-generated content sites, the cream will be recognized quickly by the user community and rise to the top, helping you avoid having to play too many bad games. But in the end, it's a game. You download it. You try it for free. If you don't like it, stop playing it and try something else. A few hours spent doing that could be more enjoyable than spending another few hours playing the same old games on the console, particularly during the dry months (read: generally all months outside of the Fall).

[FordGTGuy Posted Feb 21st 2008 2:47AM]

If only we could communicate with retards...............

[slyckstyx Posted Feb 21st 2008 10:44AM]

Looks like Areae has competition now:

http://metaplace.com/

[Bretterson Posted Feb 27th 2008 4:09AM]

I had been wanting to try JellyCar for awhile now!