Coding For Our Future?

Rumours are persisting of plans by Microsoft to offer discount developers kits for the XBOX 360. Over the years development kits offered by the console manufacturers have become increasingly expensive; prohibitively so unless you happen to be a lottery winner or a large publishing house!

This is not accidental. Hardware manufacturers have been keen to cherry pick their developers, forging alliances with key publishers and teams. The high pricing policy reflecting not only the high unit cost of development equipment but a strategy to deter the casual developer, providing tools only for those financially able to support the burden of developing a title. The system effectively filtered product development opportunities to those who were serious, committed and were intent on finishing a product.

This is a far cry from when I started in the industry. At the age of 13 I had my nose in assembly language guides for microprocessors such as the Z80 and 6502 and was happily creating my own software. In those days the bulk of editorial content for the gaming magazines where devoted to developer hints and tips and long listings of program code that could be typed in by the reader to make a homebrew game. Apart from the machine itself the only real financial outlay was a couple of reference books and macro-assembler software. You could be up and running as a developer for less than the cost of a copy of Half Life 2!

The emergence of the console market effectively put an end to hobbyist programming. A closed hardware architecture gave no access to the innards of the machine. Yes, you could insert a disk or cartridge, but there was no opportunity to write program code without the aforementioned expensive development kit. The PC side of the business did not fare much better as assemblers and C compilers became ever more expensive and software development became a business that involved large teams and significant financing.

Recently Microsoft has held out an olive branch to the hobbyist developer and has provided a version of Microsoft Visual C++ (Visual C++ Express) for free download from their website. Yes, if you have an interest in developing your own software you can now go to the Microsoft site and download this professional quality development tool completely for free! The software is nothing short of superb and only lacks a few features in comparison to its "Professional Edition" sibling. The good news is that these features are of little interest to the hobbyist in any event. Microsoft has bolstered this with regular hobbyist newsletters, forums and web space devoted to forming a community.

It seems little surprise then that Microsoft may be choosing to follow this path with the XBOX 360. A move that is sure to be popular and one that Microsoft deserves due credit and commendation.

As a gamer who perhaps has no interest in developing programming skills, you may be wondering what all this has to do with you. What benefits would a gamer receive from such a policy and approach. The nurturing and kindling of new developer talent is crucial to our industry. Most, if not all, of the world famous software developers today who have brought us chart topping software started their careers as hobbyists. There are many new talents waiting to be discovered who have the potential of bringing all of us, gamer, developer and publisher the next generation of gameplay.

In coming full circle and empowering the grass roots hobbyist we are sowing the seeds of our gaming future. It is in all our interests to support these fledgling developers as the next generation of entertainment is in their hands!

Anklesock

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