[Chicago] Python for teens.

[Chris McAvoy]

On 12/7/06, Atul Varma <varmaa at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's awesome!  Is it possible to do this with a store-bought XBox 360, or
> does one have to become a registered developer with Microsoft and get a
> special XBox development system?

Off the shelf Xbox with a hard drive and network connection.  You use
this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx  to write the
software.

Currently it's in beta, so you can't play it on the Xbox yet.  The
full version comes out this month.  It's free, and will provide the
xbox part.

There is, however, a catch.  To play these homebrew games, you have to
pay a $99 / year "creators club" fee.  Which is kind of crappy.  Which
means you won't be able to send your game around unless the other
people are in the creators club.  That said, you can still play the
games you make on a windows pc.  All the dev tools are free, as long
as you don't charge for the games.  They're coming out with a
professional version (not sure about pricing) that lets you sell your
games.  I'm pretty sure they're also going to do some sort of
verification process that allows 360 games to get out of the creators
club and into the wild.

So, really, there's still a yucky Microsoft patina on the project, but
it's the best practical solution I've seen to allowing someone to
easily build a console game.  I'm pretty impressed.

Chris