Develop It Yourself

"I think that consumers as creators, or the creative community, is a reality of a creative medium moving forward," says Chris Satchell, general manager of Microsoft's game developer group. "There are so many amazing ideas in the community that go undeveloped because there is a lack of the right tools and distribution channels."

It would appear that this is a matter of considerable change. Quite suddenly, it seems, each of the big three console manufacturers is promoting a growing acknowledgement of the homebrew community, putting together apparently egalitarian schemes to help democratise console development. Yet, while all have described their intentions in similar terms, their various efforts to empower the hobbyist developer have taken very distinct routes.