Tue, May 20, 2008 | 12:01 BST

XNA will help Live “leapfrog” PSN and WiiWare, says Microsoft

Speaking to GI, David Edery, Xbox Live Arcade’s worldwide portfolio planner, said that user-created games will set Xbox Live apart from its rivals.

“I certainly think from an innovation perspective it’s going to help us leapfrog the competition, effectively until they find a way to duplicate it, assuming they ever do,” he said.

“To some extent it will certainly help us have more innovative content than either of them, just by definition. With all this random stuff coming from the community, every once in a while there’s going to be a real gem in there that you just couldn’t have found otherwise, it wouldn’t have found its way on to a console.”

The XNA game-creation stuff for Live was announced at this year’s GDC and will go live later this year.

11 comments

#1

Blerk
20/05/08, 12:06 pm

The other consoles have access to Flash support though, don’t they? I can think of a very simple way for them to compete. :-D

I’m quite looking forward to seeing what sort of stuff this brings out, actually. Although as usual, 99% of it will be complete crap.

#2

Psychotext
20/05/08, 12:08 pm

Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of junk… but I’m sure there will be some excellent new ideas too.

I’m loving these smaller games on XBLA, PSN and WiiWare. =)

#3

pjmaybe
20/05/08, 12:16 pm

Lots of twin stick shooters, I predict.

Given the standard of XBLA titles that get passed for approval, one thing’s for sure, XNA should feature just about any old game regardless of quality :)

#4

kasai
20/05/08, 12:18 pm

Microsoft will no doubt ruin this by adding some extra subscription charge.

#5

Psychotext
20/05/08, 12:29 pm

pjmaybe: It isn’t MS that will be approving games in XNA. It’s other XNA developers.

#6

DrDamn
20/05/08, 12:33 pm

Interesting choice of phrase “leapfrog”. Kind of implies you are behind already. I prefer the PSN stuff but that is a personal preference.

#7

Tonka
20/05/08, 2:12 pm

@Blerk It’s been happening since the launch of Opera. MS will leapfrog fuck all.

But I commend them for this project and I’m sure there will be some really good games along with all the 2D shooters and platformers.

Actually I’m not. But I would gladly be proven wrong.

#8

Psychotext
20/05/08, 2:15 pm

PSN is good, but it badly needs more titles. The ratio of good to bad is better on it right now… but there’s only 4 games I play on PSN vs 20 on XBLA.

#9

Psychotext
20/05/08, 2:20 pm

Oh, and demos of the games FFS.

#10

DrDamn
20/05/08, 2:44 pm

I have bought quite a lot of stuff on XBLA – worthwhile games – but very little of it is new or different. I’ve got quite a few titles from PSN which fit that category though.

#11

Psychotext
20/05/08, 2:54 pm

Doesn’t really concern me… as long as the games are fun. =)

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