XNA Framework

We’re not the only ones busy around here :). My friend Julien as well as other very smart people are building the next generation development system for Xbox and PC games, XNA. Part of this work is to build an implementation of the .NET framework for the Xbox 360. This means considerably reduced development costs for casual games and... who knows what's next? This is just going to be great as it's going to lower the entry bar for game development. I hope this is the return of the time when people like me, with the help of a few friends, could develop a reasonably successful game. This brings back 20-years old memories of the time when I was building video games with my friend Fabien for the TI99 and Atari 800...

6 Comments

  • Cool stuff, but .NET is still to slow for games :( but I wouldn't mind writing games for XBox 360 as .NET develper. What about Commodore 64 ? :)

  • TI-99/4A? Wow, that brings back some memories. I remember hacking apart some of the default words the speech synthesis module could "say" into phomens so the computer could say anything. Of course the next step was teaching it to curse... :)

    Nothing like hearing a computer say byte me...

  • Max: the truth is that not many people have tried it but those few tries I know of showed performance between 50% and 80% and I'm suspecting that we still have to learn how to optimize managed code for games. Now consider this: how many times faster is the 360 when compared to the old Xbox? Would you say the Xbox is "too slow for games"?



    I don't think so.



    (to answer your other question, I have a Commodore 128 in my basement but I never developped any games for it)

  • Hi Bertrand,



    The only technique to "optimize managed code for games" I could come up with is to use wrappers for Win32 functions for all graphical operations. What you would suggest?



    I cannot agree to using XBox resources by managed code would make XBox users happier, but effectiveness of writing code is .NET is unquestionable.

  • There are many things that can be done to improve or just get good performance for games with .Net and the XNA Framework, both on the PC and on the Xbox 360. Performance is a very important part of what we do and as the platform evolves we are very confident that .Net can become a very good platform for many kinds of games both on PC and on Xbox 360. Not to sound closed to discussion or anything, but, as with any technology, the proof will be in what people actually do with it ;)

  • Where's the evidence for 50-80%... sources please.... the cloest to official from MS is >95% and tha matches my experience too.



    Plus take a look at any casual game - even it it was 50% who would notice. Nobody is suggesting writing half life 3 in managed code here.

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