Episodic and User Created Content Part of the Plan for XBLA
By Chris on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 10:42 AM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Games, Microsoft, Microsoft
Xbox Live Arcade has been a major success so far, and Microsoft’s David Edery assures us that there’s plenty more in the works for the Xbox 360 platform. With the Wii’s Wii Ware and PlayStation 3’s PlayStation Network becoming more viable platforms, Edery loosely outlined what he believes will keep Xbox Live Arcade one step ahead of the competition.
“We have some really big initiatives going on right now and I can say that everyone internally is really excited about user created content,” said Edery.
“Multiple internal groups are trying to think about the best way of supporting it on the console and I can tell you for sure that things are happening, I just don’t know if we’ll see any of them in the next 12 months,” he said.
While that timeline isn’t the most encouraging thing, the prospect of having user created available is a tremendous one. The real question that lingers is whether or not it will ever really happen.
Edery was also excited about the prospect of episodic gaming on Xbox Live Arcade.
“We’re really excited about trying to bring episodic content to XBLA,” enthused Edery. “We haven’t really done it yet and we’re trying to think of the best ways to do so.
“The Penny Arcade guys are going to be bringing their episodic game to Xbox Live Arcade but I think of that as only the beginning – it’s just one model for episodic and there are lots of different models.”
But Edery also said that Microsoft won’t be willing to throw up just anything; they want quality content, and nothing less will make the cut. (So how did Yaris get up there, again?)
“It’s an obvious statement but we don’t want to put out bad content. We need to see a really, really good episodic franchise before we go ahead and throw a bunch of half an hour or hourly gameplay episodes on our service.
“The day a developer comes to us with that is the day we’ll sign it. We’re making it clear that we’re very open to this sort of thing,” he said.
Talk is good – and this is definitely good stuff – but we’ll remain cautiously optimistic until we actually see this stuff really materialize.
Gabe has spoken to Xbox, and Xbox did comply.
There should be user content for regular games also. I would pay extra to download a game track or map editor. Games should have the option to add user content and the ability to share them with friends or people you play with.
Imagine creating that awesome Halo 3 map, New golf courses in tiger woods. or even better making a track in Forza motorsport 2 like a road you drive on each day. that would be neat to race on your favourite local roads in the game.
Moneysoft and game designers, give the power to the people, i bet it would surprise you on what great content people can create, ive seen people make awesome maps/tracks in some PC games in the past.