Announcing the XNA Game Studio Express Update
Michael Klucher
Program Manager – XNA Community Game Platform Team
In April of this year you’ll be able to download an update to XNA Game Studio Express, this release mainly focuses fixing your requests and issues that you’ve filed through the Microsoft Connect site(yes, we really do read and respond to your bugs and feedback as best we can). So what are some of the improvements in this release? Let’s take a look through each feature area.
- XNA Game Studio Express
- Windows Vista is now fully supported
- You can now add icons to XNA Game Studio Express Games.
- Incrementally deployment of Xbox 360 projects now works for all your projects (not just the last one loaded)
- XNA Framework
- Added Bitmap based font support
- Added XACT 3D Audio support
- Improvements and additions to the Math framework API’s
- BasicEffect now supports per-pixel lighting
- Many more changes based on your feedback!
- XNA Framework Content Pipeline
- Added support for Volume Textures (Texture3D)
- Content builds can now be canceled
- Support for “clean” builds
- Added the ability to read vertex and index buffer information from Model types
- Many more changes based on your feedback!
- XNA Game Launcher (Xbox 360)
- Game thumbnails are now displayed for your games
- Improved connection-key connectivity experience between the Xbox 360 and the PC
- The ability to test and diagnose the connection between the Xbox 360 and the PC
I hope that some of the changes called out above are something that you’re looking forward too. Funny, there seems to be something I’m missing from the list... oh yeah...
- Developer sharing of packaged XNA Game Studio Express Games
- Users can now package their binary games into a single file to share with other users of XNA Game Studio Express.
- These files can be emailed or hosted on websites like any other files.
- To run a game double click a file and it will unpack to your Windows based PC or Xbox 360 console, it’s that easy!
That was it! :-) Throughout the week of GDC and into next week we’ll be expanding on this list to give you information and “sneak peeks” at some of the new functionality to this update of XNA Game Studio Express. We hope that this starts to build in the direction that you want to see and is considered by us to be a small step towards our goals future visions.
Comments
Anonymous
March 08, 2007
It's sounds so cool. I hope the update will be available as soon as possible (o: Very good work!Anonymous
March 08, 2007
För dig som är intresserad av XNA och spelprogrammering och som har följt några av mina inlägg samt debattenAnonymous
March 08, 2007
Volume textures and game sharing, I can't wait!Anonymous
March 08, 2007
Does it support Visual Studio 2005 (not the Express version)? If not, I'm not interested. If I'm going to build games in my spare time, I want to use all of the tools that I have to make development easier such as Resharper, unit tests, etc..Anonymous
March 08, 2007
It's good to see that you are continuing to update and improve XNA. I think that all of the items listed above will be a great addition to an already great package. Keep up the good work, I look forward to trying out the update.Anonymous
March 08, 2007
so you guys weren't sitting around playing WoW this whole time? nice :-)Anonymous
March 08, 2007
Is it too much to hope that GUI support has been added to the framework?Anonymous
March 08, 2007
Next month we'll be releasing an update with a small sampling of some of things we've been working on.Anonymous
March 08, 2007
The next release of the XNA Framework won't add anything dramatically new to the content pipeline, butAnonymous
March 08, 2007
XBOX LIVE SUPPORT PLEASE!!!!!!Anonymous
March 08, 2007
The comment has been removedAnonymous
March 08, 2007
I am very very happy with the progress so far. Especially binary distribution to the 360, the vanity plates (game splash/title in the XNA launcher) all good things. Can not wait to see whats to come after this.Anonymous
March 08, 2007
Wow - never let it be said that we stand still. The XNA team have lifted the lid on the first wave ofAnonymous
March 09, 2007
Thanks for getting it into Vista! SBCAnonymous
March 09, 2007
ContentManager.ReadAsset is a new function coming in the next version of the XNA Framework . What isAnonymous
March 13, 2007
I've put my personal book writing on hold as I deal with the day to day operations of XNA.COM (andAnonymous
March 14, 2007
"Announcing?" maybe "Pre-Announcing". Sheesh. It's not availible? Why 'Announce' it? GAnonymous
March 14, 2007
What about hardware query? Anyway, XNA is outstanding!!!Anonymous
March 19, 2007
I too am waiting for full Visual Studio support. I don't understand what the hold-up is. Feels like you don't want professional developers to play with XNA.Anonymous
March 19, 2007
An imminent update to the XNA Framework will allow for sharing of packaged XNA Game Studio Express Games.Anonymous
March 20, 2007
Robert Burke's Weblog contains a nice series of XNA related blogs: Adventures in XNA 1: Mind BalanceAnonymous
March 30, 2007
I mentioned a while ago about XNA updates being mentioned on the XNA Team Blog.Anonymous
March 30, 2007
We seriously need to get Occlusion Queries in this update.Anonymous
March 30, 2007
We seriously need to get Occlusion Queries in this update.Anonymous
April 02, 2007
Announcing the XNA Game Studio Express UpdateBug fixes on the way! XNA Game Studio Express Windows...Anonymous
April 02, 2007
Very eeeaaagerly awaiting the Window Vista support .. what it the expected date of the update? Thanks, Rao.Anonymous
April 10, 2007
20 days remaining! Make sure it will work on Vista + VCS Express without any unimportant installation errors. :: Wuzz ::Anonymous
April 10, 2007
20 days remaining! Make sure it will work on Vista + VCS Express without any unimportant installation errors. :: Wuzz ::Anonymous
April 10, 2007
I didn't get a lot of responses to my previous XNA Game Studio Express blog entry (perhaps because IAnonymous
April 19, 2007
One of the new features in the next release of the XNA Framework is the addition of per-pixel lightingAnonymous
April 23, 2007
Michael Klucher Program Manager – XNA Community Game Platform Team XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 RefreshAnonymous
April 23, 2007
Still no support for non-Express Visual Studio?Anonymous
April 24, 2007
As detailed here , we've released an update to XNA Game Studio Express today. You can get an idea ofAnonymous
April 24, 2007
An updated version of the XNA Game Studio Express was released today. this version adds support for WindowsAnonymous
April 24, 2007
An updated version of the XNA Game Studio Express was released today. this version adds support for WindowsAnonymous
April 25, 2007
XNA Team Blog : XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 Refresh Released XNA Game Studio Express (다운로드) XNA GameAnonymous
April 27, 2007
In this article, The ZMan walks through the steps required to add some more sound effects and text outputAnonymous
May 04, 2007
GamesDev Channel - Redacción 24/03/2007 Sin duda XNA ha marcado una nueva era en la industria de los