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Visual Studio Differences Between Game Platforms

  • Article

Describes the differences in the appearance and behavior of the integrated development environment (IDE) of XNA Game Studio when developing for the Xbox 360 or Windows Phone.

  • Assembly Information Dialog Box
  • XNA Game Studio Device Management Toolbar
  • Add Reference Dialog Box
  • Add New Item Dialog Box
  • Project Properties

Assembly Information Dialog Box

You can open the Assembly Information dialog box from the Application page in the Project Designer.

To open the Project Designer

  1. Perform one of the following steps:

    • Under the project node in Solution Explorer, double-click the Properties folder.

      -or-

    • From the Project menu, select [project name] Properties.

  2. On the Application page, click Assembly Information.

Use this dialog box to change the assembly information for the current project. This information includes the game title, company name, copyright, and trademark, plus a brief description. When the game is installed on the target device (such as an Xbox 360 console or Windows Phone device), some of this information will be displayed in the game selection interface for that device.

The assembly information specified here only affects the values seen in the Xbox 360 Dashboard's Game Library if the project is a game project. Assembly information of library projects is not used when deploying or displaying information about a game.

  • Title
    This field specifies a title for the assembly manifest, and is required to deploy a game to a game device. On most game devices, only the first 25 characters of this field are visible.

    On the Xbox 360 console, the title appears in the Game Library.

    On Windows Phone devices, the title appears in the Games list.

  • Description
    This field specifies an optional description for the assembly manifest. Only the first 300 characters of this field are visible.

    On the Xbox 360 console, the description appears in the Game Library.

    On Windows Phone devices, the description appears after you select the game from the Games list.

  • Company
    Specifies a company name for the assembly manifest.

  • Product
    Specifies a product name for the assembly manifest.

  • Copyright
    Specifies a copyright notice for the assembly manifest.

  • Trademark
    Specifies a trademark for the assembly manifest.

  • Assembly Version
    Specifies the version of the assembly.

  • File Version
    Specifies a version number that instructs the compiler to use a specific version for the Win32 file version resource (Windows projects only).

  • GUID
    Specifies a unique GUID that identifies the assembly. When you create a project, Visual Studio generates a GUID for the assembly.

  • Neutral Language
    Specifies which culture the assembly supports.

  • Make Assembly COM-Visible
    Specifies whether types within the assembly will be accessible to COM (Windows projects only).

Platform Differences Summary

These are the differences in operation of the Assembly Information dialog box for specific platforms:

Platforms Differences
Xbox 360, Windows Phone
  1. The File Version field is not available.
  2. The Make Assembly COM-Visible check box is not available.

XNA Game Studio Device Management Toolbar

You can use the XNA Game Studio Device Management toolbar to maintain a list of one or more external game devices (such as Xbox 360 consoles or Windows Phone devices) available for deployment. It is available when you load a game project or game library project in supported versions of Visual Studio tools.

For more information, see:

Platform Differences Summary

These are the differences in operation of the Assembly Information dialog box for specific platforms:

Platforms Differences
Xbox 360, Windows Phone The XNA Game Studio Device Management toolbar is available.

Add Reference Dialog Box

Use the Add Reference dialog box to add component references required by your project. Because the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone platforms do not have the same feature set as the Windows platform, the COM tab is hidden and the .NET tab contains only Xbox 360 or Windows Phone-specific assemblies. These assemblies include:

  • Microsoft.Xna.Framework
  • Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game
  • mscorlib
  • system
  • system.core
  • system.xml
  • system.xml.linq

These assemblies are added automatically to an Xbox 360 or Windows Phone project.

To open the Add References dialog box, right-click the References item in Solution Explorer, and then click Add Reference.

Warning

The Projects tab lists all projects in the solution, regardless of platform. The assemblies in the Browse and Recent tabs may also include references to assemblies that are not for the project's platform. Projects must only reference assemblies that are intended for their platform. For example, Xbox 360 projects do not support references to assemblies that target platforms other than Xbox 360, nor do Windows Phone projects support assemblies that do not target Windows Phone.

Platform Differences Summary

These are the differences in operation of the Assembly Information dialog box for specific platforms:

Platforms Differences
Xbox 360, Windows Phone
  1. The COM tab is not available.
  2. The .NET tab contains only Xbox 360 or Windows Phone-specific assemblies.

Add New Item Dialog Box

You can open the Add New Item dialog box by right-clicking the solution in Solution Explorer, or by selecting it from the Project menu. Use this dialog box to add new Xbox 360 or Windows Phone–supported items. This list contains the following items.

  • C# Class

  • C# Interface

  • C# Code File

  • XML File

  • XML Schema

    Note

    This option is available only in Microsoft Visual Studio.

  • Text File

  • Assembly Information File

  • Resources File

    Warning

    The string resource type is the only built-in resource type supported by Xbox 360 or Windows Phone projects. Adding other resource types such as bitmaps or icons to a resource file may result in compilation errors.

  • Class Diagram

    Note

    This option is available only in Microsoft Visual Studio.

  • Game Component

  • Content Type Reader

The Assembly Information File template for Xbox 360 or Windows Phone projects excludes the AssemblyFileVersion attribute. Neither the Xbox 360 platform nor the Windows Phone platform support this attribute.

Project Properties

Project properties are grouped into pages in the Project Designer. You can access the Project Designer in the Project menu by clicking Properties, or by double-clicking the Properties item in Solution Explorer. The Project Designer property pages are located in the same middle pane used by the code editor.

  • On the Application page, the Target Framework drop-down list box is disabled for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone projects.
  • On the Build page:
    1. The Platform target drop-down menu has been disabled in supported versions of Microsoft Visual Studio tools.
    2. The Allow unsafe code property is disabled for Windows Phone.
  • On the Content Build page, the Compress content pipeline output files check box is disabled for Windows Phone projects.
  • The Debug page has been modified for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone game projects. The Start Action and Enable Debuggers options have been disabled. The Working Directory, Use Remote Machine, and Enable the Visual Studio hosting process controls have also been disabled.
  • The Settings project property page allows you to add a settings file to your Xbox 360 or Windows Phone project. However, note that the settings file is not supported for Xbox 360 or Windows Phone projects.
  • The Security and Publishing pages are hidden.

See Also

Visual Studio Unsupported Features
Advanced Topics
Developing Xbox 360 Games