Category: XNA

XNA Game Studio

Big Announcements!

Well, another conference has come and we have more announcements it seems.  Hard to believe I’ve neglected this blog for so long that it’s been since last August that I wrote anything.  This is probably because we have so many other team members who are doing such a great job with their own blogs, mine almost seems redundant!

Nevertheless, some great things annouced today that are quite exciting.  You can read all about them on the XNA Team Blog as well.

The first big announcement was Xbox LIVE community games coming this holiday season (with a special preview for a limited time right now).  Later this year you will be able to develop your own games using the XNA Creators Club subscription and upload your game to Xbox LIVE for the whole world to see and play for free (assuming it passes a peer review).  What’s more, if you believe your game is a money maker, you will actually be able to sell your game and make money.  Exciting times are coming indeed.

As part of this, there are seven community games available fore a very limited time right now.  If you want to try them out (and I heartily recommend you do), first go to the market place on your Xbox and go to the Game Store and navigate down to XNA Creators Club and download the new Game Launcher.  Once it’s downloaded, navigate back to the Games Library on the games tab, and under “My Games” navigate over to the “XNA Creators Club” twist and press Y to see the list of games to download.  They’ll appear under that twist to play once they’re downloaded as well.

While this was a huge announcement in and of itself, we actually made a second announcement today as well.  Starting with XNA Game Studio 3.0 you will not only be able to create games for Xbox and Windows, but you’ll also be able to create them for your Zune as well.  You’ll even be able to use the wireless capability of the Zune to play against other nearby Zune’s in multiplayer games!

As I’ve sometimes implied with my reflection posts and the like, annoucements like we made today are the reason I do what I do.  It’s been my stated goal for years now to bring managed code and gaming to the masses and we’re getting there, one game at a time.

Gamefest (or “I never seem to write blog posts anymore”)

Well, Gamefest started today, and with that our team blog posted a new announcement.  Exciting stuff!

I also realize I rarely update this blog.  I’d love to say that I’m working on improving that, but the truth is, aside from being busy, I have I guess what you’d call “writers block”.  Nothing interesting to really talk about work related that isn’t being covered by someone else.

I’ve considered switching to the Live Spaces thingy and writing more often, but it wouldn’t be anything like the things I write here, and I can imagine the few readers i have left aren’t overly interested in the ramblings of whatever i’m thinking about at the time.  Besides, i’m sure most of that stuff would simply get me in trouble anyway.

GDC? Books? A web site? A blog post?

I never seem to find time to write posts here anymore.  Well, to be more accurate, I get frustrated with the number of things I get as direct responses to posts (or even just random mails from people from this blog).  Honestly the top two questions I get are people wanting me to send them copies of my books and people asking me for help with their homework.  These are normally followed up shortly by those same people letting me know how much of a jerk I am for not relenting to their request.  It doesn’t seem to matter if I ignore it or respond politely, the same result occurs either way.  It’s almost enough to make me wonder why I even write anything (and I’m fully convinced it will be worse at least for a short time after this post).

Anyway, enough random complaints from me, and onto what I originally was going to write about..

After the two topics above, the next most asked about topic is about books.  When is my next book coming out, when am I updating one of my older books, etc.  So let me ask you what you’d like.  If I were to write a third book, what would you like to see?  I’m guessing not many people will suggest science fiction or an in depth discussion of the civil war.

If you haven’t heard recently (sometimes I am a little slow on the announcements) we have launched a new creators club web site.  It has a new starter kit for you to download and enjoy, a number of samples to look at, and even new forums.  Naturally, there is more there as well, so go check it out!

We also have our Dream. Build. Play. contest going on, and we announced some of the prizes which are simply amazing in my opinion ($10,000 cash, a new computer, a chance to have your game published on Xbox Live Arcade and more?).  There was also a ‘warm up’ contest using the Spacewars starter kit that had some amazing entries.  I’m excited to see the things that will come out of the real contest now.  Like I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always wanted to run a contest for something like this.

As part of the GDC list of announcements, we also have a lot of great information.  Such as Creators Club members getting a license to the Torque X engine.  None of this even hints at some of the things we are hoping to have done in the not too distant future.  For anyone who thought we were going to be resting on our laurels as they say, rest assured we are doing nothing of the sort.

Now if I could just get myself to be more like Shawn and actually write some technical posts here once in a while…

Reflection

With a title like that I’m bound to start discussing the intricacies of one of the CLR features am I not?  Well given the day, I have to say of course not.  I’m going to take this time to remind myself of the things that have happened over the last year.

Have you heard?  We shipped the Xna Game Studio Express!  Honestly, I thought I had written a short post stating that, but apparently I’m losing my memory in my old age, because it certainly doesn’t appear to be here!  For that, I apologize, but it wasn’t a secret that it was coming out, so hopefully this isn’t a surprise to anyone!

As I insinuated in a post a few months ago, this release has been quite ‘special’ for me.

This time a year ago I was still in the DirectX team.  Such a thing as “Xna Game Studio Express” didn’t exist, and the amount of people even aware such a thing was being considered was very small.  This team has gone from essentially nothing to having a product out that will changes the rules in this industry. This was all done in the space of a single year’s time (really in just a few short months).  This is an absolutely remarkable achievement, and I hope every single person who helped make this possible feels the same sense of pride that I do.  The hard work shown by this team and how we pulled everything together to allow all of our anxious customers to start using Xna was a sight to behold.

When I see things such as Xna Racer and various other games being created in the community that prove all the people who were telling me how impossible it would be to create such things using managed code, it makes all the long hours I’ve put in over these years to help make this happen worth it.

It’s not often in life you get to be a part of something that not only can change the industry you work in, but can spawn an entirely new one as well.  What this team has accomplished in such a short time speaks volumes about the passion and dedication they have and bodes well for the future of this product.

We’ve accomplished all my original goals for managed code in gaming.  We’ve released a product with plenty of support.  We’ve opened up the Xbox 360 for development using managed code.  We even have a contest going for you to enter to win great prizes.  I’ve been trying to set up a contest for a very long time.

Knowing some of the features we have planned, and seeing what the community already has done in such a short time, I couldn’t be more proud of where we’ve ended up.  The excitement is just beginning.  The rest is up to you!

Random XNA thoughts and links..

Well, maybe not so random.

First, ever wonder what the XNA Framework was?  Look at Mitch’s latest post on the Xna Team Blog..

Second, a coworker has recently started a blog, and he has a number of interesting posts, including explaining why he joined the Xna team.

Which makes me get quite nostalgic myself.  Shortly after we announced I sent out an email internally, which i’ll now include here (albeit slightly modified for the public)..

—- Insert Sentimental Thoughts.

I can’t decide if it seems like yesterday or a lifetime ago, but GDC in 2002 was the first public showing of what became known as Managed DirectX.  Since that date I’ve listened to countless people telling me how and why managed code could never be a viable game development platform.  Actually, I guess that’s a lie.  It started before then since it was an uphill battle in the DirectX team just to get it to ship in the first place.

Yet here we are today, and listen to the buzz.  It was almost instantaneous.  Gone are the cries of impossible, replaced with the excitement of “when can I get it” and “omg, are you serious?”  Just wait until later this year when they’re actually using it.  I can’t wait.

I’m sure everyone gets up and comes to work for their own personal reasons, and I doubt everyone shares mine, but what gets me going (and keeps me going) is a combination of two things.  One, the ability to make a difference, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say there was a certain egotistical aspect as well.

Not only am I no longer alone, there’s an entire team focusing on much larger issues, bringing an entire end to end solution.  This team is fulfilling not only my original goal with Managed DirectX — opening up game development; but going so far beyond what I had hoped it’s hard to describe.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been so excited about a project, and it’s a feeling I’ve missed.  Not only do we have the “egotistical” aspects intact, but we have the opportunity to change an entire industry for the better.  If that isn’t making a difference, I’m not sure what is.

Truth be told, this is probably one of the most sincerely “proudest” moments I’ve been able to achieve in my career, although I’m sure it will be surpassed later this year when we’ve actually shipped and people are using our stuff.  We’re not only pushing people towards the next age of game development, we’re defining what that means.  I couldn’t be more excited.