I'm a XNA developer and I can say that we've never heard of commercial prices until now. While MS will enable us to sell games at some point but most games will be free.

Epsicode

Dishwasher needs to be reasonable. Not much to ask for, that game will be a monster hit.

PsycheE

As far as I understand, exceptional XNA developed games will be charged for, while basement-built games can be put up for free.

rljohn

@suya123: Id imagine any choice to monitise games would be left up to the devloper. microsoft have allways siad they are still considering leting devs charge for games and how such a system would be implemented. so for the moment we still have to presume that all xna community games are free of charge, with the slight possibility that a dev might choose to charge for there game.

Of course this is all conjecture, but at the moment, so is this leak.

cubed2D

you can say XNA games sould be cheaper than arcade games if there produced on a shoestring budget, and im hopeing us xna devs will be able to charge for games on the community games service. If a game is worth full price though, i see no reson why it shouldent be full price. im hoping microsoft will work with some of the more ambitious indy comunity devs to push there games on to live arcade proper.

@Nirolak: XNA can be used for full arcade titles, like dishwasher is.

cubed2D

@suya123: So much for their "Youtube of Videogames" comment then.

Laughin_Caulk

$2 - 4 XNA games, please.

XbhaskarX

And here I thought it would've been free. Sorry for doubting you Microsoft.

suya123

Well, I think they mean things like The Dishwasher might still be 800 points if it were an XNA game since it's really impressively done, but the vast majority would be cheaper. Actually, wasn't Dishwasher turned into a full XBLA title? I'm not sure anymore.

Nirolak

Hmm... Oh, really?? Well I guess we'll see when the time comes..

Katorok

@Shawk: Both.

Captain Impulse

Perhaps it varies from game to game, thus "most likely"?

Captain Impulse

Will the developers get the money fro this or will Microsoft?

Shawk

Let's hope they're not too low in price. Creating an XNA game is also work that has to be paid.

Mokka

@Shawk: Yeah, they'd have to be pretty damned entertaining to even approach the $5 mark.

Captain Impulse

@suya123: @Laughin_Caulk: It's up to the people putting their games on Community Games if it should be free or not. (At least if it hasn't changed now)

Harteex

@Captain Impulse: Hmm, I guess that's fair enough.. I can see this being very popular if they charge something like $1.00 a game or $2.00, but 10 bucks? no way in hell.

Shawk

Maybe they stuck that caveat in there because they intend to allow devs to set their own prices? If a homebrew guy thinks his game is as good as anything on XBLA, then he should be able to charge the same and reap the rewards.

freakout

@Mokka:
I guess that is the choice of the developer and not MS.

Garo

If a development takes TIME, it means it's got a budget. Of course it all comes down to quality - but I wouldn't be surprised if some XNA games were miles better than other, "real" XBLA titles.

kryo

Any other XNA developers out there? We need to make a Kotaku game, lulz.

P3nnst8r

XNA games are mostly stuff made by students, experimental stuff.. they ought to be very cheap..

CockroachMan

What Microsoft really need to do, is find some great examples of XNA games, and get some published, and making developers money.

The moment some guy goes from a dead end job, and programming in his spare time, to driving around in Ferrari's, and boasting about making his first £100,000 from an XNA game, is the moment the youtube of gaming really takes off.

Mr_Ed

I find it amusing how people assume they know what XNA is and what it should be. It doesn't matter if the game was developed by students, an old lady and her bridge club, or a 20 year professional developer. The developers' have the right to decide how much they will charge, and the consumers will decide if that price is "right" or not. I've seen amateurs create games that I'd much rather play than some full priced stuff on the market.

XNA is a tool. It can be used to create a masterpiece or something entirely forgettable. Just as a woodcarver can take a piece of wood and create something masterful, I could take the same piece of wood and fail miserably. Some of you people need to understand what kind of tool XNA is and get off your high horses.

And by the way, if a "student" makes a game that knocks my socks off, than I wouldn't mind paying FULL PRICE for it. It's all about the experience of the end user, or gamer.

peacefuloutrage

This thought that XNA < XBLA < Disc-based game needs to end. A game is worth what the consumer will pay for it; no more, no less. While it is typically true that budget-wise XNA is cheaper than XBLA than disc-based, since when does the worth equate to the budget? If that were true, Waterworld would've been worth a lot more than it was, and Star Wars a lot less.

One can argue that "prettier" games are worth more, because of the art assets and sound assets. The ideas and the programming aren't free, however, and are certainly worth being paid for.

One of the things I am most excited about is the possibility of new gameplay elements coming out of the XNA community gaming effort. Ideas that nobody would take a risk on except someone starting out and hungry for attention or the hobbyist that doesn't have his/her livelihood tied to the game, requiring that the same tired formulas be applied to.

I hope that when those ideas come to fruition in XNA form that they aren't shunned because they don't have the best graphics or sound.

Is there anyone here who wouldn't pay $10+ for the next Ultima or the next X-Com, even if the graphics were straight out of 1994?

BigWeather

@Spilt_Milk: Exactly like cubed2D said. I've known and programmed c++ and openGL for several years now, but how else will I get the opportunity to program for a console. I had to learn c#, which is very similar to java (which I already knew), but other than that, it is almost free. (+ $100)

I wanted to start out fairly simple with my first game, so I went with creating a new tower defense game, but with 1000+ enemies on the screen at once. I'm almost done with it and it still supports upwards of 1600 creeps on the screen at once while never dropping below 60fps, with no optimization to the game engine I've written yet. Anyways, I've wanted a good multi player tower defense game for a while, so I figured, why not make it on xna? Think of something similar to desktop tower defense, but on a much larger scale and up to four players.

stevemkrenz

@Spilt_Milk:
I think you are right that the majority of games will be knock-offs of existing games. However, I think there will be a fair share of RPGs / strategy / board games in time. Especially from people that do it as a hobby, get a kick out of seeing their game on the 360, and what-not.

XNA games lack three things that XBLA / disc-based games have: achievements in the official sense (though in-game achievements still can be done, of course), leaderboards (and the attendant ranked play), and access to the internet.

The last one is worrisome, not so much because it removes a way to do leaderboards, but because there are some interesting gameplay elements that could've come out of being able to connect to a server (things like user-generated content and the like).

Other than that, however, I don't see any reason why a XNA game can't equal one done in C++ to another API, or any other language / API combo for that matter. Sure, you lose some of the platform independence, in being tied to Windows / XNA CG / Zune / emulated Mac, but you gain the audience of the XNA CG, which is nice.

BigWeather

@Nubius: Just one guy, working part time initialy. after he won the publishing contract, he quit his job and is now working full time on it.

@Spilt_Milk: Xna is just a tool, an api, just like direct x or open GL. it more than possible we will see amazing games being build with it, not just games like space invaders or defender. It licenceing isnt to draconian either, you can puplish your games royalty free on pc, just as you can with direct x and if you want to publish on xbox, you have to go through the same certification process as any other dev.

Yess, its possible to make cross platform games with C++, xna isnt fully cross platform, but it dosnt make it any less of a tool

cubed2D

With XNA you will not be getting the next Ultima and more likely be getting the next space invader or defender. The majority of people that are capable of learning XNA already know C++ which is platform independent and is not tied to a bunch of draconian microsoft lawyerings.

Spilt_Milk

Was dishwasher made by a pro team or just some smart kids?

I think it's worth about 800 or so points...but not more than.

Nubius

Sounds nice, better then paying 10$ worth of points for three maps for some games, when entire games in themselves go for less then that.

Talleh