XNA to shorten development times and lower costs

Microsoft is reinforcing the growing belief in Japan that the Xbox 360 will be the cheaper console to develop for. Reports in the Japanese media regarding the CESA Developers Conference 2005 have just begun to surface.

Boyd Multerer

At the CESA Developers Conference 2005 (CEDEC) held at the end of August, Microsoft held a “Microsoft Game Developers’ Day” to showcase its XNA development architecture.

Since it was the first public showing of the XNA architecture in Japan, Boyd Multerer, Microsoft and XNA Product Unit Manager, was on hand to give Japanese developers a run-down on the benefits of XNA.

Multerer presented a slide show that began with the statement:

“XNA helps studios and publishers develop better games, cheaper and quicker, on all Microsoft gaming platforms”.

The slideshow detailed how XNA would resolve the complicated work flow and data incompatibility problems experienced in current-generation game development.

“XNA Studio”, based on “Visual Studio 2005 Team System”, aims to make game development simpler and faster across multiple Microsoft platforms: the current Xbox console, the next generation Xbox 360 console and Windows PCs that run PC games.

It remains to be seen whether this promise of lowered development costs and shortened development life cycles will lure more Japanese developers into developing for the Xbox 360 in preference to the PS3.

Adapted from http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/articles/2005/09/30/cedec/