Downloadable content has taken a major role with the latest generation of home consoles, and Full Sail Game Development graduate Josh Foss is involved in an innovative new arena for online game distribution at Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio.
Josh is a Programmer/Writer at XNA, where he’s creating online tutorials for the team’s upcoming 3.0 toolset. First announced at the 2008 Game Developer’s Conference, this diverse package will offer one of the most unique development models we’ve seen from a major console manufacturer, as it will allow the public open access to powerful Xbox 360 game production tools.
From amateurs to professionals, users will be able to download the free XNA API, as well as a copy of Microsoft’s Visual C# 2005 Express programming software to start creating their own, fully playable titles. The games produced using these tools can then be submitted to a dedicated game store on Xbox Live.
“It’s something we take a lot of pride in,” Josh shares about the project. “Having this kind of service is only going to make for fresh ideas coming into the industry. It’s also great for kids going into colleges like Full Sail, being able to touch code and make their own titles. It’s very simple to get into, and really gives them a head start.”
Josh’s position gives him the responsibility of educating new developers about the versatility of the package via the XNA support website, creators.xna.com. This has included compiling the development FAQ, creating dozens of videos highlighting game samples, and writing text for the quickstart tutorials.
“People that don’t have any idea about XNA can go to the site and watch a series of tutorials on how to make a 2D game for the Xbox 360,” he explains. “We’re already getting upwards of 20,000 hits a day, and it’s cool because the goal is to get this information in the hands of as many people as possible, and make it very open and easy to use.”
The full version of XNA 3.0 is expected to launch near the 2008 holiday season, along with the Community Games download service, which will host the titles on the Xbox Live dashboard. Detailing how budding designers will be able to get their work online, Josh explained. “When somebody creates a game they’ll post it up on the XNA website, and then it has to go through a community review process. People will play the game, check it for bugs, check it for prohibitive content, and if it passes it’ll go up on Xbox Live Marketplace. I’m also a gamer, so just the prospect of all this new content is really exciting to me on that level as well.”
And as the XNA team prepares for the Xbox Community Games unveiling, Josh is proud to be a part of a project that he hopes will encourage new talent to experiment with game development, and ultimately push innovative titles. “It’s very cool to take that information I learned at Full Sail and give that back to people,” he shares. “I love the idea of being able to help people in high school that don’t have a lot of familiarity with programming, or even industry vets just looking to get into XNA for the first time. As XNA becomes more mainstream I really think it’s going to become more to the forefront as a legitimate option for delivering high quality games in a fast way. It’s really been exciting to work on.”
