Reflection

With a title like that I’m bound to start discussing the intricacies of one of the CLR features am I not? Well given the day, I have to say of course not. I’m going to take this time to remind myself of the things that have happened over the last year.

 

Have you heard? We shipped the Xna Game Studio Express! Honestly, I thought I had written a short post stating that, but apparently I’m losing my memory in my old age, because it certainly doesn’t appear to be here! For that, I apologize, but it wasn’t a secret that it was coming out, so hopefully this isn’t a surprise to anyone!

 

As I insinuated in a post a few months ago, this release has been quite ‘special’ for me.

 

This time a year ago I was still in the DirectX team. Such a thing as “Xna Game Studio Express” didn’t exist, and the amount of people even aware such a thing was being considered was very small. This team has gone from essentially nothing to having a product out that will changes the rules in this industry. This was all done in the space of a single year’s time (really in just a few short months). This is an absolutely remarkable achievement, and I hope every single person who helped make this possible feels the same sense of pride that I do. The hard work shown by this team and how we pulled everything together to allow all of our anxious customers to start using Xna was a sight to behold.

 

When I see things such as Xna Racer and various other games being created in the community that prove all the people who were telling me how impossible it would be to create such things using managed code, it makes all the long hours I’ve put in over these years to help make this happen worth it.

 

It’s not often in life you get to be a part of something that not only can change the industry you work in, but can spawn an entirely new one as well. What this team has accomplished in such a short time speaks volumes about the passion and dedication they have and bodes well for the future of this product.

 

We’ve accomplished all my original goals for managed code in gaming. We’ve released a product with plenty of support. We’ve opened up the Xbox 360 for development using managed code. We even have a contest going for you to enter to win great prizes. I’ve been trying to set up a contest for a very long time.

 

Knowing some of the features we have planned, and seeing what the community already has done in such a short time, I couldn’t be more proud of where we’ve ended up. The excitement is just beginning. The rest is up to you!