XNA Game Studio 4.0!
…will be
- Hardware accelerated 3D API’s on Windows Phone 7 Series [Ed. notice the lack of Zune HD in there…]
- Visual Studio 2010 integration with our toolset [Ed. what a surprise…]
- Added buffered audio support to the Audio API’s [Ed. could be interesting…]
Update: Michael Klucher has a somewhat more wordy version up on his blog. From what it seems:
- Xbox LIVE API on Windows Phone 7 Series seems to be available to Xbox LIVE partners only (did anyone actually expect it to be open to everyone?)
- The dead born Zune and Zune HD support will stay in XNA GS 3.1 (R.I.P.)
- The buffered audio support is said to have been requested by lots of users; I wonder if that means runtime writable buffers…
Update 2: The GDC 2010 press release is on the XNA Creators Club Online site now.
Update 3: …which seems to indicate that XNA Game Studio 4.0 is for Windows Phone 7 Series only? Oh Microsoft, if someone really can confuse its customers than it is you…
Update 4: …but that seems to be Very Bad Wording (in the FAQ) only.
Update 5: The Shawn to the rescue with some more details:
- New platform
- Windows Phone 7 Series
- New features
- Integrates with Visual Studio 2010
- Dynamic audio output [Ed. Hui]
- Microphone input [Ed. necessary for the phone side of things, eh?]
- BasicEffect has four new siblings [Ed. or the mutant samples]
- SkinnedEffect
- EnvironmentMapEffect
- DualTextureEffect
- AlphaTestEffect
- Improved portability and usability
- Collapsed graphics caps into just two profile levels: Reach and HiDef [Ed. that’s nice]
- Many graphics API improvements [Ed. We demand details!]
- This involves some breaking API changes [Ed. We do not care (too much) about that!]
- Split Microsoft.Xna.Framework.dll into several assemblies, to make it more obvious which pieces are available on each platform [Ed. this could be a bit of a concern]
Update 6: I might as well add some tidbits about the marketplace to come:
Windows® Phone Marketplace hub: But we also remain committed to independent developers. Windows Phone 7 Series includes the Windows® Phone Marketplace hub, where apps and games will be sold. Both independent and professional developers can offer games as apps via Marketplace, giving consumers a wide array of games to choose from. Charlie Kindle, the partner group program manager for Windows Phone 7 Series, talked a little more about this in a blog post last week.
Update 7: How could I even forgot to share the release date? “XNA Game Studio 4.0 will be available in the coming month, so get ready to jump on board!” (quoted from the press release)
March 9th, 2010 - 20:33
Any word on what this means on the PC/XBox side of things yet? I’ve got some things in the works (primarily for PC) and I’m wondering if I should put these on hold till 4.0 hits… or just ignore 4.0 as Win7 phones will probably hit Europe in 2015 :p
March 9th, 2010 - 20:44
Nope, all the rage is about Windows Phone 7 Series (it is amazing how easy it is to write that beast of a brand…) right now. And apart from the VS2010 requirement for 4.0 there doesn’t seem to be any breaking changes for PC/Xbox development.
March 9th, 2010 - 21:07
Possibly not bad wording – from the FAQ:
Q: How easy is it to port a game from Xbox 360, Windows or Zune to Windows Phone 7 Series?
A: XNA Game Studio 4.0 makes it possible for developers to adapt games built on previous versions of XNA Game Studio to work on Windows Phone 7 Series without re-coding the entire game. Also, once a developer has created a Windows Phone 7 Series game, they can use some of that code in XNA Game Studio 3.1 to adapt that game for Xbox 360, Windows or Zune.
This sounds like XNA 4.0 is WinMo7 only (that is so much easier to type!)
March 9th, 2010 - 21:55
The very first link in the post states “This latest version provides a […] technology for game development on Windows Phone 7 Series, Xbox 360, and Windows PC.”, so the FAQ is Very Badly Phrased (maybe to keep the Zune in the list). Also, it wouldn’t make much sense to limit GS 4.0 to WP7 only.
While WinMo7 might be easier to type it is wrong as the beast is named Windows Phone 7 Series (I’ll just use WP7 from now on).
April 13th, 2010 - 08:49
technically the release should include Windows and Windows 7 Phone, its MUCH harder to add features to XBOX and Zune, so they could be at 3.1 indefinatly, but it is no problem at all to run with windows + windwos phone … eventually a new XBOX succcessor will be released and hopefully it could work well with a 4.0 update, but as it stands i dont think microsoft can really do anything significant with the current Zune/XBOX support, its all about potential
April 14th, 2010 - 15:26
Xbox IS supported in XNA 4.0, just not in the CTP