> Microsoft being a case in point - "developers, developers, developers" was the cheerleading chant from Steve Ballmer, unless of course the developers wanted to code for Xbox. They've opened it now I believe but again - extremely late in the game.
For the original XBox sure but the XBox 360 came with XNA at almost the start of the XBox 360. For free I downloaded the SDK, connected to my store bought XBox 360 and deployed code directly to it. It was amazing.
Granted they eventually axed XNA and left a hole partially filled in other ways afterwards but initially the XBox 360 was an amazing thing of beauty as far as openness. In fact I was in school and put in charge of making an XNA game with the cooperation of another University. It failed miserably but it was an awesome experience.
For the original XBox sure but the XBox 360 came with XNA at almost the start of the XBox 360. For free I downloaded the SDK, connected to my store bought XBox 360 and deployed code directly to it. It was amazing.
Granted they eventually axed XNA and left a hole partially filled in other ways afterwards but initially the XBox 360 was an amazing thing of beauty as far as openness. In fact I was in school and put in charge of making an XNA game with the cooperation of another University. It failed miserably but it was an awesome experience.