IC Forum Archive

luvcraft · Posts: 693

Since I have no interest in WWII FPSes or expensive emulations of 20-year-old arcade games, I haven't had much interest in the XBox360. The XNA Game Studio Express announcement changed all that, and made me all gung-ho about the system, because it meant hobbyists like me could make games for it, and maybe eventually distribute them on XBLA! Yay!

Yesterday, however, I learned about the "silver" and "gold" subscription schemes; the silver scheme lets you play the online parts of games with online parts for free. If you want to download games off XBLA, however, you have to pay an $8 mothly subscription fee for "gold". That's $100 a year, on top of the $400 you paid for the console in the first place, all for the PRIVILEGE of paying even more money to download 20-year-old games.

(FURTHER CONFUSED RANTING USED TO GO HERE)

Update: Whoa, nevermind. Apparently my friend who's had a 360 since launch was smoking crack when he told me that online play was free but buying games required a subscription, and it's actually the other way around which makes much more sense. Next time I will research things that make no sense before concluding that people who have lots of experience with them know what the fuck they're talking about. Carry on.

Mr. Business · Posts: 1530

All things considered, $100.00 for an official devkit of sorts is a steal.

A real devkit is where the big money starts.

another god · Posts: 1629

All things considered, Microsoft is raping you.

Legal Step · Posts: 1030

I don't believe in the evils of giving microsoft money for downloads. I do however like the ability to play a driving game and listen to Golden Smog. That being said...I enjoyed your post.

luvcraft · Posts: 693

Mr. Business wrote:

All things considered, $100.00 for an official devkit of sorts is a steal.

Oh no, I have no qualms with forking over $100 a year for a dev kit. $100 is super-cheap for a dev kit. My problem is with paying $100 a year for XBLA Gold, which is required to buy XBLA games. That's fucking ridiculous.

DaleNixon · Posts: 766

Wait, since when did you have to have a gold subscription to buy XBLA games?

LegatoB · Posts: 1546

luvcraft wrote:

Yesterday, however, I learned about the "silver" and "gold" subscription schemes; the silver scheme lets you play the online parts of games with online parts for free. If you want to download games off XBLA, however, you have to pay an $8 mothly subscription fee for "gold". That's $100 a year, on top of the $400 you paid for the console in the first place, all for the PRIVILEGE of paying even more money to download 20-year-old games.

I'm pretty much certain you have that backwards.

Good job going off half-cocked, though.

chevluh · Posts: 183

But the SDK's still free, right? Just means you won't be able to distribute them through XBLA, having to go with old-fashioned standard net distribution instead. You know people are gonna do that.XNA and XBLA aren't bound to each other as far as I know.

I mean, it's kinda weird, the title hints at an XNA rant, but the problem's actually XBLA.

XNA's an opportunity to try and develop stuff on a console which, despite its apparent similarity with PCs, still behaves differently in regards to various things like batch size and input. You can do things on that console that you couldn't do with a PC, and I do think it's worth experimenting with.

Also, it *is* currently the most user-friendly game SDK on PC that still uses "real" programming, allowing you to learn the complex skills that are specific to this sector while allowing you to ditch some of the more boring technical aspects.

luvcraft · Posts: 693

LegatoB wrote:

I'm pretty much certain you have that backwards.

Good job going off half-cocked, though.

Fuck-berries. I had assumed that my friend who's had one since launch would know what he was talking about. Wikipedia confirms that he is smoking crack. I will garrote him at my earliest convenience.

I apparently have a tendency to get up in arms over lies people tell me. I'd probably make an excellent fundamentalist.

Now I'm all confused inside.

Mr. Mustache · Posts: 551

LegatoB wrote:

half-cocked

Mr. Business · Posts: 1530

Mr. Mustache wrote:

LegatoB wrote:

cock

Thread conclusion.