Xbox Live Community Games Revealed
Download and Create Video Games with Microsoft's New Service
Mar 25, 2008
At the 2008 Game Developers' Conference, Microsoft unveiled a new upcoming service called Xbox Live Community Games, which will allow Xbox 360 owners' to download and play other Xbox 360 owners' custom, homebrew games.
How Can Xbox 360 Owners Create Their Own Games?
Those who are interested in creating their own games to put on Xbox Live Community Games will be required to join the XNA Creators Club, which gives them access to the XNA Game Studio 2.0 tool set. A subscription to the club costs $49 for four months or $99 for twelve months.
Microsoft is inviting aspiring game developers of any skill level to make games, though not just any game can make it on to the Community Games service -- games must first be peer-reviewed by other gamers to ensure their games are relatively bug-free and contain no inappropriate content.
Additionally, the XNA Creators Club tools are not available for every country yet, though Microsoft does plan to bring the subscription service to almost every country that supports Xbox Live.
How (and for How Much) Can Xbox 360 Owners Download the Games?
Anyone who owns an Xbox and subscribes to Xbox Live will be able to download games from the Xbox Live Community Games service. Though Microsoft has not announced any solid details yet, the company does seem to imply that the games will cost money -- part of which will be given to the games' creators, and part of which Microsoft will keep.
What's the Point?
One major benefit of the Xbox Live Community Games service will be to allow up-and-coming developers to get their foot in the door of the games industry by self-publishing their own titles. The most successful games will be able to graduate to the Xbox Live Arcade, which will allow developers to receive even more revenue. (The Arcade is a service similar to Community Games, except developers must be reasonably established before creating their own games and usually must find a publisher willing to sponsor them.)
Another benefit, though, will be to allow gamers to try out new and original games for a low price. Many major games publishers are hesitant to publish original titles, since games can be quite expensive to create and thus game publishers risk losing money by publishing original games. Yet, Xbox Live Community Games will feature original games almost exclusively.
Outlook
Though Microsoft's new service does seem promising, there is a downside -- since almost any person can create their own game, many games might be of a lower quality. However, Microsoft is including a rating feature, in which gamers can see what games have been most highly rated by other Xbox 360 owners.
Those interested in downloading the games can look forward to either the service's beta period this spring, or the service's full-out launch this holiday season. Those who don't want to wait until this holiday season for the service's launch may also be interested in Nintendo's similar WiiWare service, launching this May in North America, and available now in Japan.
Finally, a recent blog about bring back original games to consoles, click here.
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