Singapore team wins global Xbox game development challenge

Team Gambit beats 7,800 participants from 100 countries to clinch coveted US$40,000 prize

Microsoft Corp. today announced the highly anticipated winners of its Dream-Build-Play 2008 game development contest, which encouraged independent and hobbyist game developers to create innovative and fun-to-play video games for Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio.

Coming up tops was Singapore’s Team Gambit, led by National University of Singapore undergraduate Mr Bruce Chia. They received the first place prize of US$40,000 for “CarnyVale: Showtime” an acrobatic puzzle game where players have to complete various circus stunts. Mr Bruce Chia even built-in a circus map editor for players to create their own obstacles to overcome, bringing user-generated content to a new level.

The challenge saw 7800 registered participants from 100 countries, and 350 completed games from various genres were submitted. Four winners received a total of more than $70,000 in cash prizes to pursue a development career, and will have the opportunity to receive an invitation to publish their games on Xbox LIVE Arcade. Many of those games will have the opportunity to appear on the Xbox LIVE Community Games Channel when it launches to millions on Nov. 19 as part of the New Xbox Experience in selected territories.

Said Alan Chou, Regional Marketing Manager for Xbox 360 in Southeast-Asia: “This is a great milestone in the development of the Singapore gaming industry. Team Gambit has overcome tough global competition to produce a game that met the high standards of the XNA judging panel. Xbox LIVE is the world’s most robust online community for any game console. With over 14 million members today, Xbox LIVE is one of the best platforms for budding developers to showcase their talents to a worldwide audience.”

For the 2008 Challenge, Jose Alberto Gomez and his team from Venezuela took home second place and $20,000 for his stunning, 3D, action tennis submission, “Battle Tennis”. Mommy’s Best Games, led by Nathan Fouts received third place and $10,000 for the high-energy, side-scrolling “Weapon of Choice”. China’s Hu Ling and his team came in fourth place and received $5,000 for his stylized martial arts action game “HurricaneX”. Last year’s first place winner David Flook of Canada, and a team from South Africa led by Roger Miller received honorable mentions for their games “Blow” and “Save Jack” respectively.

“We’ve been absolutely blown away by the quality of games we received through Dream-Build-Play this year,” XNA General Manager Boyd Multerer said. “What is really exciting isn’t that we’ve unearthed all of this truly remarkable talent, but that many of these aspiring developers will have an opportunity to share their creations with millions when Xbox LIVE Community Games launches next month.” Xbox LIVE Community Games is available in selected territories.

Microsoft announced earlier this month that the next iteration of its industry leading game development toolset, XNA Game Studio 3.0 will be available for download on Oct. 30. Not only will the upgraded toolset allow developers to distribute their games to millions on Xbox LIVE Community Games on Nov. 19, but it will also allow developers to create and play games on Zune. More detailed information about Dream-Build-Play and XNA Game Studio 3.0 and Creators Club Membership can be found by visiting www.creators.xna.com.

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For more information, press only:

Ian Tan, Microsoft, iantan@microsoft.com +65 9879 5824

Binny Peh, Edelman, binny.peh@edelman.com +65 968 71798