Microsoft XNA: Ready for Prime Time?

Microsoft opened the doors of game development to the .NET developer community in December 2006 with the first release of XNA Game Studio Express. No longer constrained to enterprise systems, database-driven applications or Web service layers, .NET developers can now spread their digital wings and let their pixelized imagination run wild as their favorite development platform and language now enable them to explore new worlds and new challenges of their own making, all in full high definition (HD) at 60 frames per second! But who is XNA for? Is it a serious enough initiative, platform, and set of tools for professional game developers in the gaming industry? Eager to answer those questions, I (virtually) sat down with a number of professional game designers, studio directors, and developers for a chat in order to find out: Is Microsoft XNA ready for prime time?

Before I answer this question, let me frame the discussion around what XNA truly is and means. In Microsoft’s words, “XNA Game Studio Express is a game development solution targeted primarily at students, hobbyists, and independent game developers. XNA Game Studio Express is based on Visual C# Express 2005 and lets developers create games for both Windows and Xbox 360.”

XNA as a whole is Microsoft’s game development platform. XNA is comprised of three major pieces: tools and technology (like Microsoft’s game SDKs and DirectX), solutions (like Game Studio Express), and the ecosystem (what the XNA community and Microsoft partners are building).

XNA tools and technologies are what most developers in the industry are using today to make retail games for Xbox and Windows. This includes things like DirectX, PIX, XACT, and the Xbox and Xbox 360 developer kits. Which means that XNA as a whole is the name of Microsoft’s overarching initiative and offering for game development on Windows and Xbox 360, whether you use managed (C#) or unmanaged (C++) code. Note that for the sake of this article, all references to XNA imply development with managed code using C# and XNA Game Studio.

If you have never heard of XNA before or if you want to learn more about the technical features of XNA and discover how to get started with game development using XNA Game Studio Express, you should read the article titled “Introducing XNA Game Studio Express” in this issue of CoDe Magazine by George Clingerman.

Off to the Game Developers Conference

While Microsoft’s initial XNA offering is clearly labeled for amateurs, hobbyists, and students, Microsoft will surely generate a lot of buzz in the professional game development industry. As a matter of fact, Microsoft held several sponsored sessions on XNA at the last Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March 2007 in San Francisco. The conference featured the “XNA Lobby Bar” where GDC attendees could hang out and have a drink while watching rolling demos of Xbox 360 games on HDTVs, or observe four development teams hard at work on the premises, building XNA games in only four days.

Clearly Microsoft has a vested interest in catching the attention of professionals when it comes to their latest game developer tool for Windows and the Xbox 360. I spent the week at GDC and I questioned a lot of people about whether XNA was of any interest to them as game developers. Not everyone was convinced; few of them were, in fact. Most people seemed to brush XNA aside as a non-issue, or perceive it as another gimmicky wacko idea by Microsoft to push their platforms.

Not content with simple hearsay, expo floor buzz or opinions bordering on zealotry, I set out to gather the opinions of industry professionals about XNA to bring a perspective on the gaming industry to IT developers already familiar with .NET. I reached out to many experts and studios, and while many declined to comment on XNA, had little to say about XNA or simply failed to reply, the following game industry veterans graciously answered my call and provided me, and you, with the insights and opinions found in the rest of this article.

• Michael Austin, Chief Technology Officer, and Mark Terrano, Design Director, both founders of Hidden Path Entertainment
• Jamie Fristrom, Technical Director of Torpex Games
• Raph Koster, President of Areae
• Dave Mitchell, Director of XNA Game Platform Marketing in the Game Developer Group at Microsoft
• Benjamin Nitschke, Founder of exDream Entertainment
• Josh Williams, CEO of GarageGames, developers of the new Torque X game engine for XNA

I invite you to refer to the sidebars in the pages of this article for full background information about the subject matter experts interviewed, about their respective companies, and the games they build.

By: Nick Landry

Nickolas Landry is a principal architect and Practice Manager in New York for Infusion Development, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner which offers quality software development services, developer training, and consulting services for large financial firms in the New York, Boston, and Toronto areas, as well as London, UK.

Known for his dynamic and engaging style, he is a frequent speaker at major software development conferences worldwide like TechEd, MEDC, and DevConnections. He’s a member of the MSDN Canada Speakers Bureau, a Microsoft MVP on Device Application Development, and is the Vice-President of IASA New York (www.iasahome.org). Nick provides design and mentoring services in architecture and .NET development, authors and teaches .NET classes, performs system audits and business analyses, and profiles technologies for various enterprise scenarios.

Nick specializes in .NET mobility, OOP & SOA, architecture and design patterns, high performance computing, and application security. He also lectures on XNA at various events, is a production advisor for Frozen North’s Project Hippasus (www.frozennorth.net), was producer and game designer for Infusion’s Mobile Kombat for Microsoft MEDC 2006, and was a volunteer beta tester for two Star Wars Galaxies expansions.

He has written about mobile development for magazines and has helped to develop several .NET mobility courses for Microsoft, has been a technical editor for many book titles, and holds several professional certifications from Microsoft and IBM. Blog: http://home.infusionblogs.com/nlandry

xna@activenick.net