xbox 360, which one dies less?

[BadRobot]

anyone have any recommendations on which one to get thay will last?

or anyone know if i can program 360 games on a computer without a 360?

 

[mugs]

No difference in reliability
Yes you can develop games on your PC without a 360, but good luck trying to run them. 😉 You'll need a 360 and an XNA Creators Club account ($100/year) to play/test your games on a 360. You can get XNA Game Studio for free.

 

[fatdragondzc]

If you browse the older threads, you'd find the answer to your first question. Anything with the new Falcon mobo will not die on you, only the release versions died a lot. Also if your talking about programming games as in making your own and not pirating them, MS provides free download kits for you to work with.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Read the sticky FAQ.

All current models use the same Falcon motherboard. All are equally reliable (anonymous alleged insiders claim ~10% failure rate from RRoD).

The Fall update will add runs-from-the-HD for games to cut noise and improve some load times, but this obviously won't work on the Arcade model.

Some time between now and xmas the motherboard will change from Falcon to Jasper, cutting heat and power draw and almost certainly increasing reliability to reduce failures to the normal ~2% for consoles.

When this will happen and how you will tell Jasper units from Falcons is a big mystery. You could wait months for a Jasper or buy a Falcon to enjoy now. You might lose a couple of weeks to RRoD but for most people that's better than waiting months to buy.

 

[Queasy]

1) Doesn't matter which one you get between Arcade, Pro, and Elite. They are all the same with the exception of the HDD and other included accessories. The Falcon chipset is on the shelves now and reportedly has about a 10% failure rate. The Jasper chipset is supposed to be coming out this month but has not been spotted yet.

2) Yes, you can program games on a computer without a 360 - XNA Studio. It is free if you stick to the PC. If you ever want to try the games out on the 360, you'll have to pay a $100/year subscription.

 

[BadRobot]

Originally posted by: mugs
No difference in reliability
Yes you can develop games on your PC without a 360, but good luck trying to run them. 😉 You'll need a 360 and an XNA Creators Club account ($100/year) to play/test your games on a 360. You can get XNA Game Studio for free.

Yea i guess it makes sense that i would need a xbox to play my games i make. I know about the $100/year charge

xbox uses visual basic right?

 

[DaveSimmons]

XNA uses C# not VB. It can use Visual Studio Express if you don't have the full VS.

Follow Queasy's link for honey bunches of detailoats.


Also note that you're not learning "real" xbox game development by playing with XNA, more like XBLA casual / retro gaming, or Flash games on the PC.

Real xbox games generally use unmanaged C/C++ and engines like Unreal3.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Also note that you're not learning "real" xbox game development by playing with XNA, more like XBLA casual / retro gaming, or Flash games on the PC.

Real xbox games generally use unmanaged C/C++ and engines like Unreal3.

I wholeheartedly disagree. There is an art to game programming, and it is mostly independent of what language you choose. XNA is an absolutely superb way to start learning how to develop games, especially if you already have a programming background. If you really feel the need for a "real" engine in XNA, there's always Torque X - and Torque powers a fair few games on XBLA.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: BadRobot

Originally posted by: mugs
No difference in reliability
Yes you can develop games on your PC without a 360, but good luck trying to run them. 😉 You'll need a 360 and an XNA Creators Club account ($100/year) to play/test your games on a 360. You can get XNA Game Studio for free.

Yea i guess it makes sense that i would need a xbox to play my games i make. I know about the $100/year charge

xbox uses visual basic right?

C#. If you can write VB.NET code, you can write C#. Aside from the syntax differences, they're identical in almost every way.

If you're expecting VB6... expect different.

 

[shingletingle]

Originally posted by: fatdragondzc
If you browse the older threads, you'd find the answer to your first question. Anything with the new Falcon mobo will not die on you, only the release versions died a lot. Also if your talking about programming games as in making your own and not pirating them, MS provides free download kits for you to work with.

Um, this may be the worst comment ever. It's simply not true and many people can verify that, including myself.

 

[DaveSimmons]

erwos:

I wholeheartedly disagree. There is an art to game programming, and it is mostly independent of what language you choose. XNA ...

^ I think we're talking past each other a little.

You can practice game design with a pad of paper, and you can learn concepts like a game loop and collision detection with any set of tools.

But XNA won't teach you the language, tools and engines used for commercial game development, i.e. you won't be much closer to being ready for a commercial game job than if you did use Flash or VB in Windows.

I'll backpedal a little though: following Quasy's link the XNA forums have some fairly hardcore people posting about issues like patterns when tiling textures, that's beyond a typical Flash game programmer. So I'll say you'll probably learn -more- of the concepts and issues if you dig far enough into XNA coding, even if you won't learn the language and engines used for commercial work.

 

[fatdragondzc]

Originally posted by: shingletingle

Originally posted by: fatdragondzc
If you browse the older threads, you'd find the answer to your first question. Anything with the new Falcon mobo will not die on you, only the release versions died a lot. Also if your talking about programming games as in making your own and not pirating them, MS provides free download kits for you to work with.

Um, this may be the worst comment ever. It's simply not true and many people can verify that, including myself.

I wouldn't say worst comment ever, but it is partially false. My bad on that part. It won't fail on you as much as the release would be correct?