XNA Framework tidbits... Posted by XanTium | June 29 23:26 EST

David Weller, the Community Manager at Microsoft's Game Technology Group, posted some XNA Framework tidbits on his blog: [QUOTE] It's no secret that I'm pretty excited about what the XNA Framework will offer game developers. It's all about allowing you to build games that will run on both Microsoft Windows and the Xbox 360 platforms, while simplifying the development process. Because the XNA Framework is based on the .NET Framework, many developers that are already using the Managed DirectX libraries will find it very familiar. However, there are a few changes that you should be aware of: 1. D3DX, as it exists today, will no longer be present in the XNA Framework. However, many of the features found in D3DX are being integrated into different parts of the XNA Framework. Microsoft will publish a migration guide to help developers coming from the Managed DirectX world. 2. The XNA Framework will work, by default, in a right-handed coordinate system. Yes, you read that correctly. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a heretical concept at Microsoft. DirectX, for instance, has been able to work in either a right- or left-handed coordinate system for years now, but defaulted to left-hand for historical reasons. The XNA team decided to use a right-handed system by default to align with accepted practices in the mathematical community. 3. DirectSound will be replaced by a managed version of XACT (Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool). The good news here is that XACT is already available in the DirectX SDK. In addition, I'll be publishing a brief "Introduction to XACT" article in this blog sometime next week. 4. DirectInput will be replaced by a managed version of XInput. Just like XACT, the XInput library can currently be found in the latest DirectX SDK (in fact, there's a managed version available in the 2.0 Managed DirectX libraries) 5. There will be no references supported to System.Drawing and System.Windows.Forms. The XNA Framework will provide font and UI features instead. [/QUOTE]

blah blah blah..i haven't seen anything yet

Great news for the 360 homebrew.

Who the hell writes games using managed code? AFAIK anything worth playing (including stuff that isn't) is written in native C/C++. Maybe he's referring to XBLA games that don't necessarily need a whole lot of CPU cycles? Seems to be not much more than a PR exercise.

would this mean it wud be easier to rip these games because its able to be read on a PC normally?

well i suppose only certain data on the disc could be read by the PC..and would leave you with a Sega DreamCast situation where you could see "pictures" in the computer but not see data of the games. hopefully nooby people won't go too crazy saying "omg can i just burn it and play on xbox360!!!"

This doesn't mean that new games will read on both PC and Xbox, just that writing code will be the same for both systems. Encouraging more developers to develop for the 360.