Like everyone else, I'm making a game (or trying to!). I'm a fairly strong Win32 programmer, but new to games - although I do have experience with OpenGL 2.1, this is very much a learning curve, and done purely for my own entertainment. Part of the reason I'm doing this is to familiarise myself with modern OpenGL. But, I fully intend to make a Direct3D port too.

Then it dawned on me - is it really worth bothering with D3D on Win32 for a non-commercial endeavour?

With WinRT coming out with Windows 8, which can be used to create both Metro and desktop apps, wouldn't it make more sense to wait and create a WinRT port, rather than Win32?

Also, what's the betting the 'XBox 720', or whatever it will be called, will use WinRT natively - enabling a single development approach to ALL Microsoft platforms?

Any thoughts?

And, WIN32 is fully supported for Windows8 desktop apps.

If you are targeting Metro Apps you have to target WinRT, as well as a subset of DirectX (due to the Metro sandbox).

Go to MSDN and look at the target environment of some of the functions (desktop apps / metro apps). Like all mobile environments, MetroUI restricts access to system resources.