Microsoft XNA group manager Chris Satchell has gone on the record to say that companies are "inviting trouble" by allowing user-generated mods that run in a non-sandbox environment.[blockquote2]I think there's very mature, sensible hackers who just want to prove how good they are, and they don't cause harm, and there's malicious hackers, and any platform that let's you do that, and doesn't have the right security measures in place - whether it's Sony, whether it's Nintendo, whether it's Apple, whether it's anyone - you're inviting trouble, because sooner or later someone will want to prove they can do it.[/blockquote2]By right security measures, he's talking about the XNA framework, which runs code through a built-in script engine rather than natively. Strong security is great for consumers, but it comes at a price. Could Microsoft's robust security framework turn away developers that want to base their game heavily around user-created content? Let's remember that they had a bit of a disagreement with Epic Games over the use of user-created mods in Unreal Tournament 3.
Microsoft's Chris Satchell [Eurogamer]