At the ELSPA Games Summit in London, Microsoft's corporate VP Peter Moore called out to Sony and Nintendo for them to follow their XNA model. As Microsoft's way to provide "a global software development platform" for Xbox, Windows and other devices, the goal of XNA is to make game development much easier. According to gamesindustry.biz, Moore believes that this model will help pave the way for more creativity in games by keeping down the ballooning budgets for current titles.

Moore claimed that the budgets for games currently go to "80 per cent construction [and] 20 per cent creativity" for now and the engineering could grow to be 90% of the development cycle in the next generation of consoles. Just as J Allard explained a few months ago, Moore expounded on the idea of enabling developers to focus more time and energy on making the games fun rather than spending all of the time on making them work.

Another key point in Moore's speech was that beyond low costs, the XNA technology will enable companies to get games going faster and be able to see earlier which ones are worth providing more funding and which ones need to get cut. Especially with the larger companies, this will enable them to "make the tough decisions before you've invested too many dollars." Within Microsoft itself, Moore said that at least $15 million in development money has been lost from projects that ultimately got the ax.

In addition to XNA's potential effect on development costs, Moore also addressed the issue of the gaming industry's increased use of licensed intellectual properties such as movies or sports. Moore said, "the sequelization of entertainment is something that concerns me about this industry... We need to build IP and own IP in this industry, rather than pay the movie companies and the sports companies for the ability to live vicariously through their licenses."

Moore did have a few kind words for Sony at the end where he praised the EyeToy for its innovation and for reaching out to a broader audience.

Source: IGN.com