I'm open for debate, but please try to make some sense. Bringing in Halo and blue screen of deaths (seriously, is it 1998?) is completely irrelevant to XNA.

Now if you have any better alternatives on another console, please tell the world about it!
AFAIK the last best way to create indie games on a console legally was the Net Yaroze, which was far far far from what XNA is today.

By the way, Microsoft has just released their new service as beta: XBOX Live Community Games. Sharing games on a console with a service name that sounds like Communism?! Pure evil

Also you'd be interested to know that the father of Allegro is working for MS on XNA, and doing a kickass job at it.

I've no idea. But I was careful to include the qualifications so as not to misreport. Original report here.

There speaks someone who doesn't understand the value of software and ignores inconvenient differences in hardware. E.g. Intel are currently supplying a version of Santa Rosa upgraded so that it includes some of the Montevina features (the 1066Mhz FSB mainly) exclusively to Apple. Similarly, Apple had extensive stocks of the Core Duo long before it was released to other manufacturers in quantity.

I don't think so. They have at various points in the past, most famously buying in so as to effectively keep Apple alive in 1997. But those particular shares were non-voting and the best guesses of people whose opinions have been found by Google is that they're long since sold.

Microsoft does still make a lot of profit from their Apple software, and maintains a Mac software development division. Until something like 2003, Internet Explorer was the default browser on Macs. Now I don't think any Macs ship with Microsoft software that Microsoft have received money for (i.e. I know some of the consumer ones had the Office test-drive but I'm not sure what's going on now, especially as an Office 2008 test-drive doesn't seem to have been forthcoming).

Oh, completely agreed. It's just not open source. Sorry — I didn't mean to be argumentative.

Nope, but did your post lead to eggs being thrown at Steve Ballmer?

Ah, the "evil Microsoft" thread. Gotta love it.

Anyway, there's some people who really hate M$ as if they've committed a crime against them personally. As for me, I think some of M$'s business tactics are a bit shady and often strongarmed, but as long as the "big bully" provides me with fun games/consoles and doesn't come over to de-pants me, I will not boycott them.

So basically, you won't boycott Microsoft as long as you use their systems? Just saying, the "big bully" actively prevents people from using fun games, even those that they aren't directly involved with (because of DirectX), simply because they aren't using a Microsoft OS. But if you weren't using Microsoft OSs and did feel the sting.. you'd already not be using their stuff, and a boycott would be rather ineffective.

And it's not even about them pushing DirectX like they are (although in their position, it's not like they should need to).. it's the active prevention of allowing developers to use more cross-platform alternatives. OpenGL should work much better on Windows than it does (and lets not forget what they tried to do to OpenGL with Vista before certain companies complained), and they can at least try to support the POSIX standards they claim to.

To everyone arguing on the freedom side:
I used to argue on A.cc about it too. I decided there was no point because neither side is going to change opinion. I now try to avoid entering in to these pointless arguments. I recommend you do to.
Just saying.

EDIT:
Though I must say, I enjoyed reading this thread.

What a completely useless statistic. That's a bit like saying 66% of cars that cost over £1m are MacLarens so they must be popular. It's only like that because nowadays the only high cost computers are Apple.

Go ahead, they don't need your money anyway.

And when I buy Microsoft, I say "I support Microsoft, a successful company with a product that I would rather buy than use the free alternatives."

Macs aren't that expensive these days. I need a new notebook for university in the fall, and I never thought a Macbook would be on my consideration list, but it's in the top two (Thinkpad vs Macbook).

You don't even get those unless you've done something wrong or have bad hardware. I think (albeit due to iffy hardware) I've seen more kernel panics on Linux than I have BSODs on Windows.

Where is the reliance on it? Obviously your lib doesn't fulfill much of a purpose if you can't find any code to test it with...

Why should anyone care? It works the way it's intended to, so it doesn't really make a difference. And I say that hiding DirectX does lower reliance on it, because you are using an intermediate API. That API can be simulated or ported to OpenGL and the apps won't have to even care about the difference.

Okay, so within a short space of a post, you first say you hate MS and would rather face demons then let them monopolize you, but then you say you use a pirated version of Windows to play games. Which is it? Are you anti-MS, or indifferent?

I'm not sure what you're talking about here, but if you're talking about losing profits to develop the game for Linux, then its FAR from being 100+ percent more people.

You can wait for the demo.

You can't be serious. What about the big bully over at Sony that prevents you from playing their fun games on a Nintendo Wii? They aren't preventing you from playing the games on a Microsoft OS at all. I'm sorry that they aren't handing everything to you on a silver platter, like you and fellow GPL zealots expect.

There are sub-$1000 Apple computers, and over-$1000 PCs.

And I agree with Thomas Harte. I'm not anti-Linux as it may seem, hell I use it where it's appropriate. I do hate GPL, but I do appreciate their effort. I just don't like being harassed by self righteous zealots repeating the same arguments if I have the balls to say I like Windows or OS X.

Apparently you didn't. Per Neil Walker "nowadays the only high cost computers are Apple". And you are not Apple.

Is it relevant? I believe I was making the point that Microsoft are looking a lot worse now than they were a few years ago, i.e. it is incorrect to claim they are unassailable. So the question you should be asking if you're sceptical about the point I used that quote to support is: how does this statistic compare to the same statistic, calculated in the same way, in recent years? If you're asking any other question then you're engaged in some other debate.

The same statistic shows 57% share to Apple in 2007, 16% in 2006.

The only time I disobey speed limits is when following the limit would impede traffic. And I do so even if a cop is following me.

Sorry for not being clear enough, It may sound like I'm contradicting myself, while I'd rather face demons than letting Microsoft monopolize me I'd rather face god himself than not being able to play games . EDIT: btw, i don't see how using a pirated version of windows is supporting Microsoft. (deja vu??)

I'm not using windows because I like it, I use it because I have no choice. And i think that not having a choice is the same thing as being forced.

I'm talking about lowering the prices on games, seriously, they're just ridiculous. Lets use crysis as an example, they only sold 1 million copies which isn't very much considering the kind of game and the hype factor. Still, when crysis was released it was sold for a unbelievable 350$(estimation from my currency kr) and in this day and age you still have to pay 225$.

I'm not sure how many people where working on crysis or for how long but It is not impressive in my eyes, the game works like SHIT, ok, i don't have a "good" computer, but i could play "less advanced games" which >looked better and ran more smoothly<, people for some reason believe that using the latest technology is better than maybe not using the latest technology but implementing it well. Anyway, let's say that crysis made about 300000000$, to me, that quite a lot of money .

So lets start breaking down the costs, I don't know how well paid 30000$ per month is but sound pretty over paid to me so lets go with it, how many employees was working on the project? lets say 60 people worked on the project( i think this a very large amount of people ) that makes the month payment 1800000, they work for 12 month a year which makes it 21600000, and how many years? They where probably a bunch of retards so 4 years sound fair. 86400000! That is really expensive! But even as I over exaggerate it does not even cover a third of the profits. Of course there is a lot of other things to take into consideration, such as the very very very expensive shipping costs caugh, how come games is the only thing that is expensive to ship? Reason: It's bullshit. But since someones going to wine about this lets say 50000000 goes to shipping just for kicks, so now we are at 136400000, we are closing in on 50%!. The last factor is the greedy shop keeper which for some reason wants to make a shit load of money and demands 20%. Another 60000000 is lost. We land at a mere 103600000 profit, aaw.. what a failure .

Consider this: We hire competent people, this way we don't need 60 people on our projects that works as fast as snails. We cut the middle crap, meaning we sell our games on the net instead of spending so much money on nothing. I must say that selling games over the net makes me a but sad because i LOVE getting an awesome box with really cool box art and a super detailed manual that really shows that "here, since you were so nice to buy our product we give you this really nice box with an awesome manual which you can place in your game collection to show how proud you are of supporting us". But I mourn over something that has already been lost, game BOXES made of paper, which where about 6 times the size of these new plastic versions. But i don't really care if boxes will disappear completely since they look like this anyway:

http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595400

Look at this thing.. It's an abomination! Games for windows!? Why do hell should i have to put up with commercials on my products if I don't want them!?

Have you ever seen boxes such as the the first version of the Diablo 2 box? Darkstone? Shogun total war? Wing commander prophecy? I'm just picking random boxes i own and they look a hundred times better than the crysis box.

It's the inside that counts but i like having proof of supporting things i like.

Onewing: I'm sorry, I get the feeling I've said Microsoft's games where automatically bad, I've played a few games made by Microsoft game studio and i actually likes some of them, I think i actually bought one of them, i just can't remember which one it is.. I memory says something about age of empire 1 but that feels wrong. Fable was a big disappointment, halo was fun playing coop with my friend.

I don't have much agains most people making games for for Microsoft, It's just Microsoft's business tactics which makes me angry.

Favoring openGL over directX isn't a question of which performs better, the only reason i favor openGL is because it supports more platforms, it makes games able for more people, I do not believe in a world where only the rich can play games, my vision of video games are that they will be able to everyone, rich or poor. That sounds so gay.. (definition of gay should you have taken offense)

Haven't read the whole thing but got pretty far -- there is some serious lack of knowledge in this thread concerning xna, xbox, and microsoft.

Commercial Xbox developers were mostly using C++ last I checked, XNA is pretty new, the only reason indy developers CAN'T use C++, and must use C# is because of the security risk imposed by allowing joe-blow to run a native unsigned binary on his xbox, with .NET you have CAS which will prevent you from doing anything terribly evil on the hardware.

Seriously? What other console developer has released a free kit that will let you make games as an independent developer for their console? Not to mention that the code is cross-platform from xbox to windows, and soon to the zune.

Regardless of whether closed source == evil, Microsoft != 100% Closed Source, they're releasing sources to all kinds of their products and add-ons (I heard .NET 3.0 was going open source soon).