havent seen a thread on this and for all you game programmers out there, this could be something pretty cool. i know some people might have an issue with this being MS and .net dependant, but sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad ;)
check this out (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10458)
I don't care about the xbox but I'll be interessted when they make a tool that allows me to simoultaneously develop a game for windows and linux...
Sorry for bumping but.. Honestly I don't really know what XNA is supposed to be. If someone could explain to me what the difference between XNA and Managed DirectX is I'd appreciate it. I've been teaching myself how to program with DX9 for the last couple of weeks -- is this effort/money spent useless?
Thanks in advance
No. Time you spend learning some technology is rarely wasted...
I would not be too excited about it. They provide some IDE and gadgets for free and hope enough people fall for their propaganda scheme which unfortunately they seem to do. Sorry if that sounds fanboy-ish but i've grown allergic to MS a while ago.
It's just another game development kit with the option to pay to have your game ported to the xbox 360 (Which most likely is an automated processes for them that takes no significant amount time...). In the article they write about the ported games not being available for regular xbox 360 user in the beginning which either means the porting is uttlery pointless or your clients will have to engage some kind of paid service (or something) to play your game... = they have nothing to do and get a lot of money and games.
I think it might be very good. Xbox Live Arcade has some great games - I actually play the Arcade games more than 'proper' games at the moment.
Marble Blast Ultra (http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/m/marbleblastultralivearcadexbox360/) (kind of like Super Monkey Ball) was created with XNA.
But some of the Arcade games could have been much better - e.g. Texas Hold 'em which didn't live up to my expectations. So that made me want to make my own Arcade games for Xbox Live.
I haven't seen much of XNA but, from what I have seen, it looks very powerful, if you consider you can create Hi-Def games complete with xbox live co-op, leaderboards, etc.
My only reservation is the fact that you have to pay $$$ to actually create a final game with it. Typical M$ :rolleyes:
Here's a short article (http://uk.xbox360.gamespy.com/articles/729/729442p1.html) on it.