Hey guys I wanted to know if XNA is still a good choice for game development, I actually like XNA better than DirectX since there WAY more tutorials, but since its dying I wanted to know if I should use it still? I'm asking since my primary target is Windows desktop, and Windows 8, and when we have some games under my belt, trying to get a game for XBOX for Windows. Console is not my target because it is always evolving against PC game tools.
Should I use XNA?
If your target is PC, I say absolutely it's fine to stay with XNA. XNA will continue to work on Windows, it just won't run on the new xbox or the cheap Windows RT tablets (which aren't really the same market as traditional PC anyway.)
If your target is PC, I say absolutely it's fine to stay with XNA. XNA will continue to work on Windows, it just won't run on the new xbox or the cheap Windows RT tablets (which aren't really the same market as traditional PC anyway.)
It hasn't been announced what will and won't run on the next xbox, so I would take that out of this response... but in general, that is right that the WinRT runtime won't be able to use XNA. However, it is still available for Windows desktop applications as well as Windows Phone 7/8. It is really up to you to decide if you want to stay on it or not.
If your target is PC, I say absolutely it's fine to stay with XNA. XNA will continue to work on Windows, it just won't run on the new xbox or the cheap Windows RT tablets (which aren't really the same market as traditional PC anyway.)
It hasn't been announced what will and won't run on the next xbox, so I would take that out of this response... but in general, that is right that the WinRT runtime won't be able to use XNA. However, it is still available for Windows desktop applications as well as Windows Phone 7/8. It is really up to you to decide if you want to stay on it or not.
It hasn't been announced for sure, but I wouldn't bet on XNA working with the new xbox, the reports at this point don't seem encouraging.
If your target is PC, I say absolutely it's fine to stay with XNA. XNA will continue to work on Windows, it just won't run on the new xbox or the cheap Windows RT tablets (which aren't really the same market as traditional PC anyway.)
It hasn't been announced what will and won't run on the next xbox, so I would take that out of this response... but in general, that is right that the WinRT runtime won't be able to use XNA. However, it is still available for Windows desktop applications as well as Windows Phone 7/8. It is really up to you to decide if you want to stay on it or not.
It hasn't been announced for sure, but I wouldn't bet on XNA working with the new xbox, the reports at this point don't seem encouraging.
I agree, but in your original comment you stated that this was already the case - I was just pointing out that it isn't a for sure thing yet.
I asked almost same question to myself. And then I took the XNA path. It's really nice and fast (in speed of development terms) framework. Microsofts lack of support won't change much, XNA will still work.
Biggest con I can think of is platform restriction. But for this there is a MonoGame. So now I'm developing game in XNA and only for PC (don't know if Xbox 360 port will pay off at this time). But hey, I can finish game in XNA, and if this will be success, I can port it with MonoGame to others system.
XNA is in the objective world that, what C++ with DirectX never was.
XNA has clean classes, is easy to use and trully is objective.
I believe, everyone making a "game library" should experience XNA first.
Said that, we would never see crapy objective libraries like DirectX 10 or MFC.
Not only for Games, XNA is a great example how objective programming should look like!
Absolutely. XNA is still a fantastic framework for its intended platforms. Don't be discouraged when you hear about a tool or utility you use is no longer receiving updates. It is true that could easily spell death for a product that either has stability problems or needs long term maintenance but for something like XNA which is already very solid, there is little to worry about.
Yeah XNA is an excellent framework. It may not have future on the next generation of consoles, but for PC and 360 development it's solid.
There's also MonoGame (http://monogame.net) which is an open source implementation of the XNA framework. It has the advantage of a very active development community, and since it's OpenGL based (DX is in the works) it runs on almost any platform you can chuck a stick at. The API is almost identical to XNA as well, so you can get most tutorial/sample code running without too much work.
The only downside (and it's minor inconvenience) is it doesn't have a custom content pipeline, so you still need to build all your assets with the WP7 SDK.