Developer interview with Codemasters (7): Working with Microsoft

Codemasters: In many ways, restrictions have got better. Microsoft has done well to reduce the number of TCRs [technical requirements Ed.] to about a third of what they were for Xbox. The Guide is helping a great deal with Live and controller functionality.

Yes, games do need to run at 720p but they should do – it’s the 21st century after all!

Codemasters: It’s just another restriction on design like everything else. Obviously we’ll try to avoid going on to more discs. There’s lots of simple things we can do such as having one disc per territory to help matters (translated audio tends to take up a lot of space). I don’t see it as a big problem, but we’ll see.

Codemasters: The Xbox 360 is very developer friendly, Microsoft have continued from where they left off with the original Xbox. To start with the development environment was very similar to the Xbox so there was a very shallow learning curve. Microsoft have once again produced a great set of tools which helps life no end.

Importantly they have taken away a whole set of technical requirements, which makes life so much easier and improved onboard support for controllers and Xbox Live. This is all good news because it allows us to get on with the actual games!