Final XeDK's arrive

[pApA SmerF01]

Cliff Bleszinski, Lead Designer at Epic Games, has updated his developer blog revealing that the final version of the Xbox 360 XeDK (Xenon Development Kit) has arrived. This means that developers now finally have the same silicon found in the retail Xbox 360 consoles that will be available to consumers this Fall.

Developers will continue to receive software updates but now they are working with final hardware, which means they can obtain final benchmarks to fully optimize their code and take advantage of the Xbox 360's three symmetrical cores (each running at 3.2 GHz) and custom ATI graphics chip.

We also hope to see Xbox 360 games running on final hardware soon, probably at the Tokyo Game Show and definitely at the X05 show in early October.

SOURCE: Teamxbox.com

[Grindstone]

Hey smerf01, with about 2 months remaining until the 360 launches (Nov.-ish), is that enough time for these developers to get the games done? I mean, technically they have about one month before its shipped out and then manufactured and sent on to distributers. How much time does a developer typically need with the XeDK?
Thoughts?

[RSFlux]

Originally Posted by Grindstone

Hey smerf01, with about 2 months remaining until the 360 launches (Nov.-ish), is that enough time for these developers to get the games done? I mean, technically they have about one month before its shipped out and then manufactured and sent on to distributers. How much time does a developer typically need with the XeDK?
Thoughts?

I'm not smerf, but I think the developers are gonna be in a real tight crunch. A typical development cycle FINISHES it's bug squashing. Finding and isolating the bugs is often the longest part, and is even harder on hardware issues than software issues. Not to mention that since this is new hardware, there won't be precident for people to quickly apply a fix.

What can make this easier is if the differences from the beta -> final SDKs are very minor. If all the silicone works in the same way, only faster, new bugs will probably be minimal. If there are major changes, it is very possible some serious issues may be missed before launch time.

I'm not too worried about serious bugs making it into the game, however, since developers realize how much of a problem that is...if it's really necessary, they can delay the launch. Sucks, but you can do it. What this will probably hurt is that final layer of polish that games generally get. This polish pulls out the last few FPS, cleans up code and optimizes it for the finished product. While the game is probably complete, the developers won't have time to play with the final powerful hardware and perfect the code for the new system. I expect 2nd generation titles will have a huge advantage over launch titles in this regard.

~Flux

[JAMESB22]

Your right on Flux, everyone don't buy to many games @ launch, they will be xbox step-ups at best. PDZ GR3 and PG3 (if realeased @ launch ) will probaly be the best to utilize the hardware. The rest are up for Debate.... But games that were released on Xbox, then a Xbox 360 "fixed" version will not be Mind Blowing example Madden 2006....


GoW will really show whats Up In FEB 2006!