If you're one of those budding developers, seeking to make a name for yourself on the XNA homebrew community, then you might be interested to find out that the new beta build for XNA Game Studio 3.0 is finally out. The latest release includes a lot of new features and is essential for developers who want to code projects for Xbox Live Community Games. More details in our full article.

Download: XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta

August is a month full of events. And that's with or without a Large Hadron Collider accidentally ending the world. For one, there's Square Enix's DKS3713 event that just recently concluded - lots of news there - and guess what? A chance to win 300 bucks in our very own PSP homebrew contest! QuickPeek 58 is about to roll in with a band of merry Warriors and a mutant-pig!

(Editor's Note: The tenth issue's rolled out, and you can bet on it this won't be the last! Far from it. So far, you guys have done a great job sticking by us with our little weekly attempts at recapping the highlights in the industry, and for that, we really are grateful. Yeah, yeah. We've said thanks a hundred thousand gazillion times. But for as long as you guys are around, then there isn't any reason for us to stop, right? We hope you continue to take in your fill of our weekly dose of the QuickJump QuickPeek. So, with that said, on to the meaty stuff of this tenth serving! Enjoy!)

To take from our comments section, we open this edition with a: READ THIS AND YOU WILL BE EXCITED. Ha! Talk about spammage. Antics aside, we've reached the big one-oh for QuickJump QuickPeek and with it, you better get ready for all the beef in today's Issue 10. The world of gaming is not one to sit idle after all. At every turn, there is action to be had, lessons to be learned, insights to be gained. There is something that makes certain things standout in history, be it a contribution in the PSP coding scene, or in the outlook of the raging next-gen console wars. So what's been hot this week? On with the Peeking, boy-o!

The rest of the issue is waiting right behind the Full Article link!

(Editor's Note: QuickJump QuickPeek's 8th issue marks the second month since this feature came into being. Again, thanks to everyone, the support has been very overwhelming. I won't be saying much this time, I'll just be leaving you with the same quote we put up last week: My loyalty for [insert console/company] ends, where my loyalty to videogaming begins. Happy reading!)

Two months, eight weeks, 62 days, 1,488 hours, (you get the drift) - that's how old QuickJump QuickPeek is. We know it's not much, but judging from the sweet moments it had with you guys, we get the feeling we're all taking part in something special. Anyway, enough of the dramatics, we're here to bring you news right? And that's exactly what we have in this collection. Top stories from our gaming systems of choice. Dig in.

The full issue awaits after the jump!

A well-informed readership gamers have become. At least, that's what is being implied by a recent trend being discussed over at Three Speech. Going into detail, gamers are becoming less and less dependent on official game reviews, and are instead going by their own resources to see for themselves if their copy of a game like Gundam Crossfire is really up to specs, or if it's better swapped out for Resistance: Fall of Man. 

This trend works off the fact that since the upsurge of net-based media like game trailers, screenshots, and demos, gamers are being given more choices in deciding on a video game's merits, and that these media forms allow a first-hand glimpse of a video game weeks before its release. Think back a little - how was your play-through of the Lost Planet or Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2's free demos, and how much did it get you psyched out for the game's launch, at least with regard to Lost Planet?

And it's not just the official game teasers that hold influence - think back to the times you guys made a decision on whether a video game "roxxorz" or "suxxorz" based on the responses you've probably heard on websites (like QJ here), your local circle of friends (ex: your Xbox Live Arcade posse), or even your resident MMORPG guild threads? Double for the homebrew community - homebrew applications and homebrew games alike are rated according to the first few brave souls who test them, though it's almost like an unofficial review.

Looking at the other side of this perspective, could it also be that gamers in general aren't as trustful of gaming reviews as they were before? Everybody's got his own perspective, and game reviews, as impartial as they (hopefully) try to be, are still guided by human hands. And with the information players can get with demos, we're looking at an informed readership (or is the term gamership) that's more observant of any possible bias that goes into game reviews, whether it's some personal piece, or a pre-release review out from some of the premier gaming sites we have conveniently bookmarked.

What's your say on this, guys - just how much do you take a game's review into account when you make a purchase?

  

You may not know it, but ennui is something you've probably experienced at least once in your life, but have you ever experienced it as a gamer?

Ennui is boredom. The dictionary defines it as a "feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest." As gamers, we've all probably gotten bored with a game... but rare is the occasion when we've grown bored of actually playing games or of doing something game related.

For instance, ennui sets in for online gamers when they realize that everything they do inside the game doesn't actually have any appreciable impact on the world around them. For console fans, it's probably come across in the form of frustration, or simply the sudden inability to care about what happens to Link, or to your Gamerscore, or to your plans for another ultimately awesome installment of Ponies and Kittens homebrew. Well, either boredom or despair, but they tend to be the same thing in this sense.

In either case, the feeling of WANTING to play seems to disappear out the window for most of us, and it's a shame, because there's something missing in our play that we don't completely understand. It's not the purpose, because the purpose behind play is always there. It certainly isn't the feeling of satisfaction of downing a boss with a well-timed Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku- Shouryuken- Hadouken combo.

In fact, no matter what reason you have for stopping, or whatever feelings you've got inside over your current pasttime, let me tell you something very important: it's okay.

Yep. The world (of Warcraft) will keep running without you, and the games you love, the guilds you cherish, and the respect you pick up from the homebrew community will remain intact even if you're not there for a little while. The important thing about games, which we sometimes forget in this day and age of trying to make games more mainstream and worthwhile, is that the worth of a game and the pasttimes we love come from the fun we derive from it.

Our suggestion: do something you haven't done yet. Your pasttime will welcome you with open arms, and you can tell us what else you've been up to. In the meantime, tell us about your stories of gaming ennui. We certainly would like to know how you got past your period of gaming ennui.

It has been four months since XNA Game Studio Express was discussed to the public. In case you've been living under a God-knows-what, this software allows end users to develop, test, and share their prototype games. In other words, Microsoft opened its next-gen console to the homebrew community.

While this action alone speaks of how Microsoft feels towards the community, it is always good to hear what they actually have to say. Especially now that the XNA Creators Club just opened, a few words from the officials are expected. As if thinking the same thing, gaming site Kotaku sat down with Microsoft's Game Developer's Group GM, Chris Satchell, for a short interview.

Generally, Microsoft is happy with the way things are going. Satchell mentioned that to further encourage fans to create games, they will be hosting a competition next month. He explained:

Maybe their first game won't be groundbreaking, but it will get them into game design. Every time we see a road block we try to remove it. What we will do, we will take the best entry and work with them to get their game on Xbox Live. We want to make budding developers successful. We aren't talking yet about details on the financial side, how we can get some revenue and flow it back to the creator.

It's a good thing they are already thinking about the welfare of the community even in this early stages. After all, they are the very strong foundation that companies are built upon. Satchell perfectly understand this as he used YouTube as an explanation:

What we are working on next year is creating the YouTube of games. We need to figure out how people who aren't in the development community, aren't in the Creator's Club, can get to these games. We need to create the community arcade. Give people tools so they can communicate on it.

As Utopian as the plan sounds, the Microsoft officer is not naive about certain issues and he knows that a lot of problems are still needed to be fixed. He highlighted security and the market being flooded by needless material:

Those are a lot of the problems we need to solve to allow effective sharing. Not only are we learning on the technical sides, but we are also learning how do you let people search a lot of content.

Finally, Satchell is expecting that competitors Sony and Nintendo will soon follow suit. But this, he explained, shouldn't be a cause of alarm for them. He concluded that Microsoft is about fans and not competition.

Just a little heads-up for other aspiring XNA homebrew devs out there: We picked up this video from Youtube we thought you'd wanna see. It's a short video on a game called "Wings of Death" and it features the function of the game's shield system, and also offers a glimpse of how the controls will work - the guy's only using one controller to fly both ships seen on screen.

Given what Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express is shaping up to be, and given what this video's just shown us, it leaves one wondering what sort of fun we can expect as more and more people step up to test out Microsoft's fray into the homebrew community. Enjoy the video.

We heard that a company called IT GlobalSecure is hosting game security classes to teach developers how to protect their gamers (with topics like security implications, cheating, griefing, and network architectures, etc.). Why is this news to us gamers and to our favorite developers?

Well, if you're a developer (like commercially developing games or homebrewing some for your PSP or DS), it's not all about making the code work out. Because quite frankly, with today's age of interconnectivity and whatnot, the chance of gamers being vulnerable to various threats is rising. From casual homebrew games to big MMOs, all these games are affected by security factors. The security of Second Life was breached just a month ago. Nintendo's WiFi.com had to be taken down due to a hacker. And you PSPU readers might remember last year's PSP "trojan" threat?

The point here is that MMOs, and the DS, PSP, PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 all offer gaming interconnectivity. But how secure is that? How clean is the code? (Not just homebrew code; even professional developers make mistakes.) Don't you have a right to expect that the games you play should be safe? So we guess it's a good thing that there are people and companies that are aiming for tighter gaming security.

This is a public service announcement brought to you by the loving people here at QJ. It might seem like common sense to some of you, but it's always good to make sure that everyone gets this reality check about games.

As much as we all love games and love to get the chance to play them, it feels sad to say this but you won't get rich from game testing.

While ads for game testers tend to pop up every so often on different sites, with game testers supposedly being offered $80-90 an hour to play games, it isn't true at all. The general going rate for a game tester is around $10-15 an hour. At the very least, it's some nice pocket money on the side - but it's not the road to riches.

Now, it's nice to play games and all, I think we can all agree on that. The problem with trying to test games for a supposed amount of money is the potential burnout. In addition to having to take care of paperwork to explain whatever bugs you might happen to fix, there's also the strain it can put on your ideas of gaming. While you might grow to appreciate game testers because they can actually pull off this kind of tedium, you may end up getting bored long before you finish what you're supposed to do.

For those who really want to get into the world of gaming as part of a development team or as a programmer, there's no better way to go about it than by picking up the skills to make games of your own, either from school or from people who can teach you programming. Once you learn a new skill for yourself in the gaming field, try making games of your own to master the art of programming and get real experience in game design. That's another reason why DS and PSP Homebrew is so a great venue for potential game makers: people won't hesitate to tell you what's good, what's bad, and what you can do to improve.

If you can take criticism and improve from the input you've been given, then you certainly have what it takes to do well in the world of games development. That, and you probably won't get tired of making your own game worlds to play in, no matter what genre it is, especially if you get a fan or two along the way.

The reality check might be over, but the dream continues: keep playing those games, but remember to work hard if you want to make gaming your way of living. Good luck gamers!