Microsoft Corp. today announced XNA (TM) , a powerful next-generation software development platform. XNA empowers developers to deliver breakthrough games while combating rising production costs and ever-increasing hardware complexity. Games for future iterations of all Microsoft® game platforms -- including Windows®, Xbox® and Windows Mobile (TM) -based devices -- will be unleashed by tools and technologies from the XNA development platform.
XNA is the catalyst for a new ecosystem of interchangeable, interoperable software tools and technologies from Microsoft, middleware and game development companies. By integrating software innovations across Microsoft platforms and across the industry, XNA forms a common environment that liberates developers from spending too much time writing mundane, repetitive boilerplate code. Instead, XNA frees game creators to spend their time where it matters most --on the creativity that differentiates their games.
"Software will be the single most important force in digital entertainment over the next decade," said Bill Gates, founder and chief software architect of Microsoft. "XNA underscores Microsoft's commitment to the game industry and our desire to work with partners to take the industry to the next level."
The industrywide XNA initiative will be unveiled today in a keynote speech delivered by Microsoft's Robbie Bach, senior vice president of the Home and Entertainment Division, and J Allard, corporate vice president, Xbox platform, and chief XNA architect, to hundreds of game developers at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif. In the speech, Bach will outline some of the challenges that game developers will face in the near future.
News source: Microsoft
View: Microsoft XNA website
XNA is the catalyst for a new ecosystem of interchangeable, interoperable software tools and technologies from Microsoft, middleware and game development companies. By integrating software innovations across Microsoft platforms and across the industry, XNA forms a common environment that liberates developers from spending too much time writing mundane, repetitive boilerplate code. Instead, XNA frees game creators to spend their time where it matters most --on the creativity that differentiates their games.
"Software will be the single most important force in digital entertainment over the next decade," said Bill Gates, founder and chief software architect of Microsoft. "XNA underscores Microsoft's commitment to the game industry and our desire to work with partners to take the industry to the next level."
The industrywide XNA initiative will be unveiled today in a keynote speech delivered by Microsoft's Robbie Bach, senior vice president of the Home and Entertainment Division, and J Allard, corporate vice president, Xbox platform, and chief XNA architect, to hundreds of game developers at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif. In the speech, Bach will outline some of the challenges that game developers will face in the near future.
News source: Microsoft View: Microsoft XNA website
"Silicon advancements and new features like high-definition and pervasive broadband will send game development costs skyrocketing," Bach is expected to tell conference attendees. "The video game industry must band together to find a solution that ensures vitality and sustainability for years to come, while responding to consumer desires for bigger, better games."
As part of the XNA unveiling, Microsoft also announced Allard's responsibility for overseeing and driving the XNA initiative companywide. "At the heart of XNA is choice. No game today is built with just one tool, and no game tomorrow will be either," Allard said. "By creating an environment where software innovations flourish and work together, XNA will allow game developers to redefine what's possible in games and give gamers the freedom to pursue their own paths. XNA closes the gap between what gamers want and what developers dream."
Illustrating the potential of the XNA development platform, Microsoft will make a series of announcements about its own video game tools and technologies in four key areas: online, input, graphics and audio.
- In response to strong customer demand, Xbox Live (TM) development tools for functionality such as billing, security, login, friends and matchmaking will be made available to Windows developers. The tools will make it easier to create the same social, unified online gaming experiences on Windows that game players have come to expect on Xbox.
- On the input front, as part of XNA, Microsoft will develop a common controller reference design and unify input APIs and button standards across multiple platforms. The result will be a family of common controllers for Windows and Xbox game players. In addition, the move will fuel a whole new wave of compelling, cross-platform input devices from peripheral manufacturers.
- In graphics and audio, many tools such as PIX (an analysis tool) and XACT (an audio authoring tool) -- previously available only to Xbox developers -- now will be available on Windows as part of the XNA development platform. Likewise, innovations from Windows such as High-Level Shader Language (HLSL) will come to Xbox. The DirectX® API and the Visual Studio® development system will continue to be the baseline environment for both platforms. Collectively, these tools and technologies will enable movie-quality graphics while forming the impetus for new software that will help developers cope with the looming complexity of high-definition video and audio.
More than 20 game development and middleware companies already have recognized that XNA will drive advancements in the industry. David Lau-Kee, chief executive officer of Criterion Software, said, "We are pleased to see that Microsoft shares our vision of helping developers make better games, faster, through use of their favorite middleware. We look forward to leveraging XNA in the RenderWare tool chain to implement Windows- and Xbox-specific features."
u tipe in: title name, genre,and this magic software cretes it 4 u in no time ;]
Well, at least we know the rumors are true about why MS abandoned the Sidewinder lineup.
-Raptor
http://pc.ign.com/articles/501/501368p1.html?fromint=1
- How many ppl will buy the same game for multiple platforms? FEW
- How many ppl wanna play games like Tetris (i.e. games that Windows Mobile based devices can handle) on their Xbox or Windows? FEW
- How many Windows Mobile based devices can play games such as Unreal 2004 or Command and Conquer: Generals? NONE
- How many ppl will buy the same game for multiple platforms? FEW
- How many ppl wanna play games like Tetris (i.e. games that Windows Mobile based devices can handle) on their Xbox or Windows? FEW
- How many Windows Mobile based devices can play games such as Unreal 2004 or Command and Conquer: Generals? NONE
It looks like you have no clue about game dev tools... this is not for create "1 single” game for every platform... this will be use to implement and re-use as many resources as possible to lower cost and dev time on multiple platforms, sort of “porting tools” on a single dev base.
Last edited by 11188 on 25 Mar 2004 - 09:16
... and it should work across multiple platforms as well! excellent.
and for the record, theh0g has no idea what he's talking about.
[edit]
HOLY ****!!!!! have you guys see the crash demo? now if that's real time, then ... whoa. apparrently, XNA will realistically simulate deformation physics in real time, which hasn't ever been done before. holy ****.
Last edited by 471 on 25 Mar 2004 - 13:27
"multipurpose gaming engine"...what else can you make with gaming engine beside games?! Oh, it'll also support making webpages and cracking pr0n sites, right?
"and it should work across multiple platforms"...what platforms?! You'll write a game and it'll work on xbox, playstation and nintendo? What platforms are you talking about?! Oh, they'll make Doom4 in XNA and it'll run on mobile phones? Get real, this is too much even for Microsoft, they don't have enough experience with games (they do have few good titles, but they're nothing compared to coding masters like ubisoft, codemasters, square enix, ...).
http://www.go-mono.com/
aside from windows and xbox, an open source programming group has developed .net for linux and mac os. there's your multiple platforms.
i've been a programmer for 8 years and, having developed several programs in C#, i have much knowledge about what .NET is and how it works, mr. fanboy. i wouldn't be so excited about .NET if i didn't have an idea what it was.
no, a general purpose gaming engine doesn't focus on a particular genre. you have the quake 3 engine, which can only be used to write first person shooters. on the other hand you have an engine like max-fx (developed for max payne 1 and 2) which can power games of different genres. it's not my fault you don't know the terminology, and perhaps you shouldn't discuss an issue you have little knowledge of.
windows, linux, mac os and xbox, for instance. see above.
reality check: i didn't say that, you did.
first of all, XNA is a game engine, so game design is not its job (assuming you know the difference between a game engine and what is written on a game engine, though i doubt it). all your so-called "coding masters" who, at some point, wrote games for the PC or the xbox probably wrote it on directX, which, surprise surprise, probably comes from the same guys who are working on XNA.
- go-mono is like wine, it's an opensource project which tries to emulate another software. It has nothing to do with Microsoft, it's just an emulation. And it'll take a LONG time till go-mono starts working normaly.
- asp.net DOES optimize webpage for each device. It customizes output depending on browser, phone or PDA. That's the main thing about ASP.NET so I guess you don't know much about it. It's okay if you don't know everything, but chill dude.
- SURE, Microsoft will develop a software for linux...suuure, and a gaming platform for Mac? What is this you're smoking and where can I get some?
- Directx is just some "middleware" between game code and Windows, it takes care of sound output, GFX output and player's input. This is something totaly different than XNA.
Last edited by 11188 on 25 Mar 2004 - 15:46
no, it's not an "emulation" of .NET, it's the common language runtime and the JIT compiler ported to linux/mac OS, which is what microsoft encourages platform developers to do. MS doesn't actively support mono (after all, why should they), but .NET sort of works like the J2EE virtual machine where you can write a virtual machine for each platform.
that doesn't mean that it won't eventually happen. but that's not the point of our discussion, is it?
no, it's not the main thing about asp.NET, and you can retrieve the platform for every server-side HTML preprocessor there is. how do you "optimize" a webpage? tell me, oh person of knowledge.
i didn't say that. i just said that, as with all .NET code, it's possible to make it run on another platform. if not microsoft itself, i'm sure some company will be interested in that.
yes, in fact, XNA is built on top of directx. but why did you post that?
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.