Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 released!

XNA Game studio was released recently after nine months of community preview (public beta testing). Some of you might remember Managed DirectX and how easy it was to develop games using the .NET framework with it. Managed DirectX was a group of wrappers that enabled .NET programmers to interact with and use the advanced graphical capabilities of DirectX in Windows. Prior to Managed DirectX, .NET programmers used to directly P/Invoke into DirectX's DLLs and we all know how painful it is to do that especially to beginners.

After releasing Managed DirectX, Microsoft started developing Managed DirectX 2.0 -- a version with many improvements over the previous version of the framework. After starting public Beta testing of the 2.0 version, Microsoft decided that support and development will be ceased for it. Many felt betrayed after investing allot of time learning and developing programs that target the next version of Managed DirectX 2.0. However, immediately after this announcement, Microsoft announced the XNA framework.

The XNA framework is based on the Managed DirectX 2.0 code-base so the difference between the two was minimal if any at all. Moreover, unlike Managed DirectX, the XNA framework is cross-platform and works in Microsoft's next generation console the XBOX 360 and uses the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 codebase to achieve that. This is a bold and unprecedented move by Microsoft. Imagine the possibilities with such feature. Beginners can immediately develop programs that target the XBOX 360 with very little knowledge. This feature brings back allot of good memories of MSX where I had my first exposure to computers and programming. MSX had MSX-BASIC 1.0 -- a programming language even a 8 year old can pick up. It was really easy to draw shapes and lines with BASIC and creating an interactive application is as easy as

10 REM this is a what's your name program
20 INPUT "What is your name? "; a$
30 PRINT "Your name is"; a$
40 GOTO 20
Run
What is your name? Yousif
Your name is Yousif
What is your name? Yousif
Your name is Yousif
What is your name?

OK

With XNA, today's young generation have a chance to expose themselves to programming and have fun with it by experimenting with the XBOX 360 just like we did with the MSX when we were young. Indeed, I think XNA is the best thing that happened to home computing since the MSX/Commodore 64/ZX Spectrum trio.

The XNA Game Studio integrates the XNA framework in Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express. Microsoft did not make it clear whether the situation will change in the future but I think requiring Visual C# Express is an unnecessary step especially to those with Professional or higher versions. On the other hand, it's only a 30 MB download if you don't download SQL Server Express and MSDN Express so it won't take long to download and setup. Microsoft is planning on releasing XNA Game Studio Professional in 2007 for professional development of games.

Since the Express version is aimed at hobbyists, Microsoft shouldn't have put so many restrictions on it. For starters, you have to have an XBOX Live subscription and a Creators Club subscription to play the games you developed on your XBOX 360 plus requiring the source code. Requiring the source code is not a big deal since most of the stuff hobbyists will run won't be commercial in nature; however, requiring the Creators Club subscription eliminates allot of the possible user-demographic out which will most definitely hurt the spread and popularity of the framework.

Links:
Download Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express
Download XNA Game Studio 1.0

NEXT: A Guide to your first XNA game (coming soon)