Categorized | Gaming

New Xbox Live to Include Community Games


XNA Creators ClubCome November 19th, Xbox Live is going to get a major facelift. While the changes deal with mostly cosmetic and organizational issues, one feature of “The New Xbox Live Experience” will allow anyone to download user-created games.

Previously, this option was only available in beta to premium members of the XNA Creators Club, an exclusive group for the homebrew developers. Microsoft plans to bring the service out of beta along with the new Xbox Live.

This is no free ride for consumers, though. XBL Director of Programming Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb inteviewed XNA Community Manager Kathleen Sanders on the topic, and they were sort of quiet on the factoid that you’ll have to pay for these games, so we’ll post Sanders’ quote right here:

“They have an idea, they have the energy and the willpower to do it, they can go and create it, put it through peer review, and then it’s up on Community Games for you to buy,” Sanders said.

To be fair, developers are going to make some money off of this, or at least recoup some of the $99 they spent on the development software. More specifically, they get 70 percent of the revenues, or 40 percent to 60 percent while the game is being promoted as a feature title. Games will cost between 200 and 800 Microsoft Points to download, according to Joystiq.

Hyrb has previously detailed some of the new organizational features of “The New Xbox Live Experience,” so hopefully we’ll also get some robust measures to sift through the inevitable amount of crap that will be available.

This story was posted by Jared Newman - who has 16 articles published on FutureNerd. Jared is a freelance journalist based in San Diego.



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