Speaking yesterday at a launch event, Chris Satchell (general manager of Microsoft’s game developer group) expressed the desire to take the popular YouTube concept and bring it to video games:
“Where our vision’s really heading is taking that YouTube concept and bringing it into games. Think about a Community Arcade, being able to share your own games with the whole community on Xbox Live.”
Look, I’m all about giving power and freedom to the end user. There’s no doubt that by offering up the tools to create content and a forum to distribute it, we’re going to find some excellent stuff and reveal a whole world of talent that we otherwise might not have been privy to. Knytt is a great example.
But for every diamond in the rough found on something like YouTube, there’s at least nine videos of someone’s dog taking a dump that we have to be subjected to. How will it be possible for Microsoft to control quality, if they’ll even try? I have faith that the community can regulate itself, but the minute an “outsider” gets his/her hands on a freeware Pac-Man clone called Dr. Poopants, M.D. Eats Fart Burgers LOL, it’s going to be hard to erase that experience from their mind.
Which leads to another question — how many intellectual properties are going to get stepped on before the lawyers (and their cease-and-desist orders) burst from the ground to feed like the Locust hordes?
That said, any Destructoid readers working on any original XNA titles you think could be the next big thing? Send us an e-mail — we’d love to hear about your projects … provided it doesn’t involve your dog doing anything toilet related, of course.
[via gameindustry.biz]
Published: Dec 13, 2006 11:42 am