Microsoft has experimented with 3D games, reveals Satchell [GI.biz]

"We have social causes we care about, but we don't have the means to connect with people who can do something about them. We're not there, but its a world that's possible to see unless actvities like we're doing here today really gain some momentum."

Satchell was at the 2008 annual Games For Change festival, discussing the ways Microsoft hopes its XNA development platform will help provide creative activists and educators the tools and opportunities to connect with the young, energetic audience passionate about new media and world issues.

"People will base their lives around gaming experiences; gaming experiences will permeate their lives," he said, stressing just how important it was for the culture to recognize games as agents of genuine social impact.

So what is Microsoft doing?

"We can't solve everything, and won't even try. But what Microsoft can do is can help with a couple of key issues," Satchell said. Creativity struggles to reach the masses, he said, because it takes a long time for a single idea to make it all the way to the top of the industry.

Instead, he said, "We took everything we knew about professional tools and put it in a free product, and made it easy to use."

Social change games need to be built on the same console that people are playing games on already, he said. XNA is "not a silver bullet by any means - it's just one tool they have now to teach sciences or to teach the science of gaming."

Last year Microsoft announced its Imagine Cup competition, challenging users to submit XNA-built games around the theme of environmental sustainability. Over100 submissions were received from 60 different countries, and the winner will be chosen during the finals in Paris later this year.

And at Microsoft's XNA Creators' Club, people can submit new creations or mod existing ones, and then the community moderates and reviews the material.

"You can have a great game that is fun but says something social," said Satchell.

One of the things we talked about was the network play, and we've had people doing prototypes internally of multiplayer shoot-'em-ups both in versus and co-op.

I'm really looking forward to people using their networking ability to use peer-to-peer games...I'm sure we're going to see some peer-to-peer race games, kart-style games - those are going to be fun.

I think there's a potential risk on any platform where you're allowing...where you're running in what we call native mode, where you're writing straight to the metal, not a sandbox layer like XNA, and then that runs a script engine and you let people do that in that script engine.

Any platform that let's you do that, and doesn't have the right security measures in place - whether it's Sony, whether it's Nintendo, whether it's Apple, whether it's anyone - you're inviting trouble, because sooner or later someone will want to prove they can do it.

Eurogamer has a much longer interview with Satchell if you hit the link.

Microsoft's Chris Satchell [Eurogamer via DCEumu]

Microsoft invited several bloggers to breakfast during the Game Developers Conference to chat about Microsoft, the Xbox 360 and what ever else popped into our little heads.

Peter Moore, Chris Satchell, Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb, John Porcaro and Cesar Menendez were on hand to answer questions. The bloggers in attendance were Joel Johnson, executive editor of Gawker's tech sites; Brian Crecente, that would be me; Christopher Grant with Xbox 360 Fanboy and Joystiq; Gaming Steve and Gamer Andy.

The dealio lasted about an hour and a half. We touched on if Microsoft is entering the portable gaming market (they dodged), the failure of the 360 launch in Japan (Moore described the launch as a plane with two engines on fire going in for a landing), when the core pack is getting killed, innovation on the 360, supply issues and Nintendo's strategy in the next-gen war. (Moore sort of says that the console war is now a two dog fight for mass market gaming.) Oh and he totally dances around the whole "Vista is delayed" issue.

I planned on writing all of this up earlier this week but my flu and massive MT technical issues have thwarted my attempts. For now, I thought I would just upload the whole audio recording from the breakfast.

The guy asking the first question is Joel Johnson (about portable gaming), I asked the follow up question (mentiong the Business Week story). Peter Moore answered most of the questions. The rest you can probably figure out.

Download the MP3 here.

Fortunately, this time around I've got meetings during meals, so I will get to do some eating.

Microsoft is hosting a little round-table breakfast with a select group of bloggers Wednesday morning.

Peter Moore, Chris Satchell, Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb and John "Marketing Guy" Porcaro will all be on hand to talk to half-a-dozen or so bloggers about the Xbox 360 and PC gaming.

Kotaku, Gizmodo, Xbox 360 Fanboy, Gamer Steve AND Gamer Andy will be on hand for the breakfast.

Sweet I can't wait to meet those guys. I'm pretty psyched about meeting the msoft folken too.

What do you think I should ask them about, besides the whole "Where the hell are the 360s" question?