Microsoft opening Xbox development to the masses

Microsoft is going to give everyone the ability to make their own Xbox and Windows XP games...but what will be the result?

On August 30, Microsoft will release a beta version of XNA Game Studio Express, giving everyone to power to make games for Windows XP and Xbox.

The game development tools will be free, (though the code Xbox games that will be commercially distributed, a paid professional version is needed) which is possibly the coolest video game news this year, but it's also shrewd business.

Many game industry watchers have predicted that the Xbox 360 is going to become a distant third in the next-generation console war that'll truly begin this fall with the release of the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii.

Face it, Nintendo and Sony gobbled up the talent. Nintendo has the classic franchise games like Mario and Zelda while Sony scored the role-playing game market thanks to exclusive contracts with the top makers.

Rather than fighting it, Microsoft seems to be going after the un-tapped talent pool, the indie programmers by giving them the tools.

Within a year, Sony and Nintendo may well follow suit and get rid of the enormous expenses required to program console games.

While this sounds like a great thing, it leaves me with one major fear: the flood of TRULY AWFUL games that'll be coming.

Concepts not fully thought through but uploaded anyway, badly beta tested games released full of bugs and games so horrible that someone in a large company would've canned before they went too far.

Not to mention "demo versions" of unfinished games that will never be finished.

It'll be like Youtube. There's the ocasional gem of a video there, but for the most part, it's clogged with truly mundane crap.

But communities will form, friendships will be made through these communities...and then soap operas will begin. Rival novice game designers will make entire games just to insult eachother and casual players outside the community just won't get the games full of in-jokes.

I know I sound cynical, but I saw all of this when I was involved in a game development community many, many years ago.

Truthfully, I was probably more guilty of everything I just described than anyone else.

All that said, it will be worth it for the few incredible games that wouldn't have seen the light of day otherwise.

And if Nintendo and Sony open up their consoles to everyone as well, it'll be that much cooler.

Heck, I'll probably try this out August 30 and see if I can still code my way out of a paper bag.