YankeeH8er
08-21-2006, 02:55 PM
Link (http://letskilldave.com/archive/2006/08/19/XNA_3A00_-What_2700_s-free-and-what-isn_2700_t_3F00_.aspx).
"There seems to be a lot of confusion about what is coming with XNA and what the $99 "fee" is, so I wanted to (attempt to) clarify the confusion.
XNA, as a term, refers to a family of products and services. We announced two major pieces of the family at this week's Gamefest: The XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio Express (GSE for short).
Let's start with XNA GSE. It's the tool that helps you build and test games, and runs on Windows. This is what will be available as a beta release on August 30th.
Then we have the XNA Framework. Technically, there's two pieces to the XNA Framework:
1. the libraries (or assemblies in our case), and
2. the runtime.
The XNA Framework libraries for both platforms are the same, which is how we enable you to write games that work on both platforms. Those libraries (for Windows) will be delivered along with XNA Game Studio Express on August 30th.
Now, about the runtimes. In the case of Windows, we just use the standard .NET 2.0 runtime. Easy as that.
For the Xbox 360, we created a custom runtime, based on the .NET Compact Framework. This runtime must be downloaded/installed on your Xbox 360 before you can run an XNA-based game on it. Getting the Xbox 360 runtime requires a subscription to the XNA Creators Club, and it won't be available until XNA Game Studio Express hits initial (1.0) release during this holiday season.
Right now, the $99 annual subscription cost (or $49 for 4 months) of the XNA Creators Club covers the cost of downloading and providing security servicing/updates to the runtime. We are investigating ways to make the subscription more valuable, and will have more details as we get closer to initial launch date for the subscription service.
So, repeat after me:
* Building games using XNA Game Studio Express costs nothing on Windows. Building games using XNA Game Studio Express costs nothing on Windows.
* Deploying games on the Xbox 360 requires a membership in the Xbox Creators Club. Deploying games on the Xbox 360 requires a membership in the Xbox Creators Club."
"There seems to be a lot of confusion about what is coming with XNA and what the $99 "fee" is, so I wanted to (attempt to) clarify the confusion.
XNA, as a term, refers to a family of products and services. We announced two major pieces of the family at this week's Gamefest: The XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio Express (GSE for short).
Let's start with XNA GSE. It's the tool that helps you build and test games, and runs on Windows. This is what will be available as a beta release on August 30th.
Then we have the XNA Framework. Technically, there's two pieces to the XNA Framework:
1. the libraries (or assemblies in our case), and
2. the runtime.
The XNA Framework libraries for both platforms are the same, which is how we enable you to write games that work on both platforms. Those libraries (for Windows) will be delivered along with XNA Game Studio Express on August 30th.
Now, about the runtimes. In the case of Windows, we just use the standard .NET 2.0 runtime. Easy as that.
For the Xbox 360, we created a custom runtime, based on the .NET Compact Framework. This runtime must be downloaded/installed on your Xbox 360 before you can run an XNA-based game on it. Getting the Xbox 360 runtime requires a subscription to the XNA Creators Club, and it won't be available until XNA Game Studio Express hits initial (1.0) release during this holiday season.
Right now, the $99 annual subscription cost (or $49 for 4 months) of the XNA Creators Club covers the cost of downloading and providing security servicing/updates to the runtime. We are investigating ways to make the subscription more valuable, and will have more details as we get closer to initial launch date for the subscription service.
So, repeat after me:
* Building games using XNA Game Studio Express costs nothing on Windows. Building games using XNA Game Studio Express costs nothing on Windows.
* Deploying games on the Xbox 360 requires a membership in the Xbox Creators Club. Deploying games on the Xbox 360 requires a membership in the Xbox Creators Club."