Hi
Edit: When I say DirectX I mean SlimDX/DX10 not C++/DX, my bad, just been reading directX books to make sense of SlimDX and I guess im use to saying DX
I have been using SlimDX for about a week, learning from DirectX texts and I am enjoying it, I have been playing around with XNA for a while and even though it is fairly straight forward and really easy to use, I have been reading a lot about XNA being discontinued (nothing official). Now I dont care much about tablets, phones or consoles so my XNA efforts from the start have been all about PC Games, I personally am hopeful XNA 5.0 comes out or at least some announcement about it yet if the rumours are true there wouldnt be much point in continuing with XNA and I should just focus completely on SlimDX.
While it is tempting to learn and attempt to master both, considering how big DirectX is I figured I may as well dedicate all my time to that, technically it is learning 3 things since im not familiar with C++ and constantly have to look at C++/DirectX examples then convert into SlimDX
I was going to necro old threads about XNA's future but those focused more on metro apps
So I guess my question is, is there enough 'evidence' to claim XNA is likely to die? I dont mean an official blog or anything but business patterns, cancelled funding, fired members etc. While the learning curve would be good and learning something is always nice, DirectX is only on my list of things to learn at the moment because of XNA's presumed fate, I am just concerned that a few months down the line a "XNA 5.0 to be released soon" announcement will appear which would mean I spent all that time learning when I could have been improving / adding content to my current game.
Is the ship really sinking?
Should I just move on to DirectX?
I've heard no such thing myself, and I seriously doubt it. XNA is pretty much the one popular game dev platform for .NET, so why on earth would MS cancel it?
So I guess my question is, is there enough 'evidence' to claim XNA is likely to die? I dont mean an official blog or anything but business patterns, cancelled funding, fired members etc. While the learning curve would be good and learning something is always nice, DirectX is only on my list of things to learn at the moment because of XNA's presumed fate, I am just concerned that a few months down the line a "XNA 5.0 to be released soon" announcement will appear which would mean I spent all that time learning when I could have been improving / adding content to my current game.
Is the ship really sinking?
As stated by Shawn Hargreaves here, It is clearly stated that XNA is not an option for Windows 8 Metro. He doesn't say "XNA is not yet an option, but wait, you will see an amazing XNA 5.0 coming soon". So you should better focus on learning Direct3D11, as there is more chance that you will leverage on this knowledge to jump into the bandwagon next-gen API. If you care about making games for Windows 8 Metro, Direct3D11 is the only way. If you don't, you can still use XNA on the desktop, but you should not expect XNA API to be part of any next-gen plans.
Can't really say this is suprising.
In fact it sounds like history repeating itself.
I remember being on these forums years ago when Microsoft dumped managed DX for XNA and pissed off all the VB programmers that were using it.
Now they are going to piss off all their C# developers that are using XNA.
Not good idea if anything they might as well say the hell with it if I got to learn something as complicated as C++ might as well learn Objective-C and develop for iPhone where there is money to be made or Android.
Is Windows 8 really that much of a resource hog that they have resort to native C++ for games?
Or are they being more profit driven like Apple which doesn't really cater to the hobbyist game programmer anyways and leaves you at the mercy of learning Objective-C/OpenGL all by yourself without any extra help
Anyways, just because XNA is dead or dying doesn't mean it still can't be useful to you to learn game programming. I see sort of like on step above Kodu,Scratch, Alice, Gamemaker, Unity, etc. It's fun and engaging enough to keep most interested and going to at least finish some games where C++ is soul sucking, time draining enough that only the most dedicated stick with it long enough to finish anything.
And all this after they finally got VB support for XNA! can't believe I missed that
Visual Basic Support
Visual Basic is now available for both Silverlight and XNA Framework applications. Visual Basic is fully integrated into the Windows Phone SDK 7.1;
p.s. Also now that I think about it technically Managed DX never really died it just became part of XNA just like XNA seems to now part of Windows Phone development SDK. I mean when you try to download XNA nowadays anyways that's where it redirects you to so maybe it's more of a name change than anything.
In fact it sounds like history repeating itself.
I remember being on these forums years ago when Microsoft dumped managed DX for XNA and pissed off all the VB programmers that were using it.
Now they are going to piss off all their C# developers that are using XNA.
Not good idea if anything they might as well say the hell with it if I got to learn something as complicated as C++ might as well learn Objective-C and develop for iPhone where there is money to be made or Android.
Is Windows 8 really that much of a resource hog that they have resort to native C++ for games?
Or are they being more profit driven like Apple which doesn't really cater to the hobbyist game programmer anyways and leaves you at the mercy of learning Objective-C/OpenGL all by yourself without any extra help
Anyways, just because XNA is dead or dying doesn't mean it still can't be useful to you to learn game programming. I see sort of like on step above Kodu,Scratch, Alice, Gamemaker, Unity, etc. It's fun and engaging enough to keep most interested and going to at least finish some games where C++ is soul sucking, time draining enough that only the most dedicated stick with it long enough to finish anything.
And all this after they finally got VB support for XNA! can't believe I missed that
Visual Basic Support
Visual Basic is now available for both Silverlight and XNA Framework applications. Visual Basic is fully integrated into the Windows Phone SDK 7.1;
p.s. Also now that I think about it technically Managed DX never really died it just became part of XNA just like XNA seems to now part of Windows Phone development SDK. I mean when you try to download XNA nowadays anyways that's where it redirects you to so maybe it's more of a name change than anything.
I remember being on these forums years ago when Microsoft dumped managed DX for XNA and pissed off all the VB programmers that were using it..NET peeps who miss MDX should move on to SlimDX, no need to resort to C++
Is Windows 8 really that much of a resource hog that they have resort to native C++ for games?
Author
Speaking of Shawn Hargreaves, I noticed he is no longer on the XNA team "A couple of requests to talk about future XNA plans. Sorry, no can do. Not my team any more!" from http://blogs.msdn.co...lts-are-in.aspx
Searching for anything on this resulted in coming across http://www.shawnhargreaves.com/cv.html where he is no longer on the team from 2010, however I couldnt find anything in his 2010 blog archives mentioning this (although I focused more on titles oppose to content), mind you there was a blog about him getting married in 2010 so not being part of XNA could be because of that.
As much fun as it is playing detective, it is giving me a headache, maybe I should make a XNA game called "is XNA dying" and design it like cluedo
Personally I dont like portable crap, phones, tablets, laptops etc but I will likely make use of DirectX 10/11 and assuming XNA does live for the sake of Xbox 720, it would be a long time before that comes out.
Anyway thanks for the reply, I think it is time to move on, at least for me anyway
PS. My cat woke me up at 5am, only to go back to sleep herself, if any of my post makes no sense, blame her
Searching for anything on this resulted in coming across http://www.shawnhargreaves.com/cv.html where he is no longer on the team from 2010, however I couldnt find anything in his 2010 blog archives mentioning this (although I focused more on titles oppose to content), mind you there was a blog about him getting married in 2010 so not being part of XNA could be because of that.
As much fun as it is playing detective, it is giving me a headache, maybe I should make a XNA game called "is XNA dying" and design it like cluedo
Personally I dont like portable crap, phones, tablets, laptops etc but I will likely make use of DirectX 10/11 and assuming XNA does live for the sake of Xbox 720, it would be a long time before that comes out.
Anyway thanks for the reply, I think it is time to move on, at least for me anyway
PS. My cat woke me up at 5am, only to go back to sleep herself, if any of my post makes no sense, blame her
The way things are looking, I don't expect to see a new XNA version anytime soon (if at all). DX11/C++ is the tech you need to use for Win8, and the smart money is that it's going to replace XNA for Windows mobile.
As far as a straight-up graphics API goes XNA isn't very good for PC in the first place...it makes a lot of concessions in the name of compatibility with Windows Phone and Xbox, and it ends up leaving the PC somewhat gimped. XNA 4.0 is also in this weird spot where it mimics D3D10/D3D11 API style but still uses D3D9, which makes sense as a transitionary step but the longer it remains that way the more awkward it seems. However it does still have some useful framework elements, as well as a lot of samples, books, and community content.
As far as a straight-up graphics API goes XNA isn't very good for PC in the first place...it makes a lot of concessions in the name of compatibility with Windows Phone and Xbox, and it ends up leaving the PC somewhat gimped. XNA 4.0 is also in this weird spot where it mimics D3D10/D3D11 API style but still uses D3D9, which makes sense as a transitionary step but the longer it remains that way the more awkward it seems. However it does still have some useful framework elements, as well as a lot of samples, books, and community content.
IMO, the only reason one would learn XNA in the first place is to develop for an XNA specific platform ala Xbox. If you want to make PC games, I think the only way to go is c++/direct3dX. It may have the biggest learning curve, but in the end, c++/direct3dX will always be on the forfront of advancments in game development.
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