Talk:Microsoft XNA

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Software License Terms and Distribution Restrictions Must Be Transparent

Some users, I presume in an attempt to protect Microsoft or their own personal interest, continue to remove any criticism of the XNA framework. They are making it worse for Microsoft and for themselves. Now I have posted reviews in Amazon.com and reviews will follow. Microsoft's license agreements clearly states that you cannot distributed networked applications or XBox applications, pretty much the only profitable segments in the videogame industry today. Future attempts to hide this heinous licensing agreement will be met with a formal dispute and vandalism reports. here are the licensing agreements:

Licening terms specifically prohibits the distribution of any networked videogame in any platform: "Commercial Networked Programs. In the absence of a specific agreement signed by both you and Microsoft which specifically grants you the rights to develop commercial programs that connect to any network, including Xbox Live and/or Games for Windows Live, you may not use the software to develop commercial programs that connect to any network, including Xbox Live and/or Games for Windows Live." In addition, you may not distribute games outside of the windows platform: "Distribution Restrictions:you may not...distribute Distributable Code to run on a platform other than the Windows platform"

In addition : Can I use the XNA Game Studio Express or XNA Framework to build a commercial Xbox 360 game? A: XNA Game Studio Express lets you create Windows and now Xbox 360 console games much more easily. These games are limited to non-commercial scenarios for 360 titles created with XNA Game Studio Express. However, XNA Game Studio Express may be used to create commercial games which target Windows. We plan to release XNA Game Studio Professional next year which will allow developers to create commercial games for the Xbox 360 in addition to Windows. From : http://msdn2.microsoft.com/fr-fr/directx/aa937793(en-us).aspx —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ml6868 (talk • contribs) 21:08, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Criticism Section very POV

The criticism section cites nothing and uses weasel words. Once one corrects for these things, there is really nothing of merit left to it. XNA is a system in production, to complain about XNA is to complain about a construction crew not having put walls on the house yet. Give it some freaking time.

Although already adopted by a large number of developers worldwide, XNA has not become widely used for its main purpose [citation needed]; it was supposed to make game programming simpler.

It has made game programming simpler. Additionally, this statement is a non sequitur, as it does not elaborate on "XNA's main purpose" or how XNA has failed to acheived it. Perhaps if we had a citation, we would know what the original author intended by this sentence. As it stands, the first portion of the sentence (adoption) is unverifiable, and the second and third portions are vacuously empty. Deleting.

However, because it lacks features such as Skeletal animation, code which would seem complicated for a beginner is still required to get things moving.

No mention is made of the possible reason for this exlcusion, i.e., the early production status of XNA. If developers express a desire to have a skeletal animation system in XNA, then it's pretty likely Microsoft will include it. This sentence needs to be changed to indicate that lack of features are simply a function of lack of maturity, not some greater flaw in XNA's design itself.

Another problem with XNA is that some people say it takes too much control away from the developer[citation needed], which is why many large game developers choose to directly access the DirectX APIs through a language such as C++.

Weasel words (some people say...), and probably untrue. Established developers use C++ because of A) a mature toolchain for work in C++, B) mature assets, including 3D engines that are coded in C++, C) proliferation of C++ knowledge amongst game developlers in general, and D) fear, uncertainty, and doubt of new, untested technologies. Ten years ago, game developers railed against switching to C++ from C, ten years before that they railed against C in favor of to-the-metal assembly coding. There is no loss of control, it is a trading of control from that of the hardware to that of the expression of the game.

Given the cost savings one can have through the rapid application development principles brought to game development by XNA, if more developers had confidence in .NET and C#, XNA would see higher adaption. It's not because of a "lack of control." Control has no meaning, it's bottom dollar profit, and getting games done on time and under-budget increases profits.

Finally, if one were to develop a game in C++/DX that did everything a .NET/XNA game did under-the-hood, they would have similar runtime profiles. C++ is not magically several orders faster than JIT compiled .NET code. Equivalent operations take equivalent processing time, no matter in what language the program was originally written. The problem comes from a misinterpretation of what constitutes an equivalent operation. Garbage Collection and Managed Types are features, features that sometimes get hacked into systems when attempting to compensate for their lack of inclusion in C++. You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone that can code a more performant implementation of GC than what is in .NET.capnmidnight 21:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Good riddens to that section. I didn't like it very much anyway.

[edit] Managed DirectX 2.0 Beta Controversy

  • Companies have developed for Managed DirectX.Net 1.0 and 1.1 for years.
  • Near the end of 2005, a beta for 2.0 (2.0 from now on) was released, with no warranties, as usual.
  • This did not stop several companies from starting to develop for 2.0.
  • Six months later, Microsoft declared that they would never release 2.0, but merge much of it into XNA instead.
  • The companies which were developing for 2.0 got the advice to rewrite six months of coding for 1.1, and legally release their program, then rewrite it again for XNA once Microsoft was finished with their new API.

As Managed Directx wasnt going to anywhere, they decided to revitalize it in the form of XNA. Commercial games mostly use Assembly and C/C++, so this decision maybe only affected some "student" or "hobbyist" projects, big deal.

Yes, big deal. Ifor OOP from the ground-up, which (the non-proprietary) C# was. Even uber-coder Carmack has given up on C, and the OOP shows when you play DOOM III.

I guess you mean "professionals in their own eyes"? Not to mention, that significant parts of MDX 2.0 Beta were only "implemented" as stub objects and functions. Those projects, if they existed at all, must have been "close" to completion.

I mean professionals as in people who work full-time on a commercial product. Is there any other kind? I don't know if your use of quotation marks around "close" symbolizes sarcasm, or not, but it doesn't matter much, because I don't see your point anyway. How close they were to completion was irrelevant. What did matter, to them, was that they had just spent several man-years on a deprecated API. I'm not saying those developers are not partially to blame themselves for using a beta API. I'm not saying I dislike Microsoft. In fact, I love MS, and XNA is awesome. In the end, the conversion from DX2beta to XNA that they had to make was much less prohibitive than they anticipated, which was kind of the whole point of rushing the release of XNA. That doesn't mean they weren't miffed at the time, when MS had not yet released the beta of XNA.

[edit] Incorrect citation

XNA Game Studio Express is the IDE for homebrew developers that will be available free of charge during the 2006 Christmas period

This has nothing to do with the linked article: [1]

Nothing is said about a release date in the cited press release (though I believe this information to be accurate).

Timbatron 04:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] y what it stands for?

Microsoft has a history of naming things just because it sounds cool... "Xbox"? What the hell? "Xbox360" What the hell-er. But I like it :D

The [XNA Faq http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/] just states :

Q: What does XNA stand for?
A: XNA’s Not Acronymed

Does that really mean XNA expands to XNA’s Not Acronymed, or it was just to say that there was no expansion for XNA? --soumসৌমোyasch 08:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the self-referencing acronym explanation better than the latter. Since it's capitalized: "XNA’s Not Acronymed", I would assume it's the former. Otherwise the answer would be "XNA’s not acronymed." — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe I heard that it was Cross Platform Next generation Architecture in Looking at XNA Part 1 from Channel 9. Amnesiasoft 01:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[Link to Channel 9 vid http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=257928]. Explains that the acronym came first. I suspect the answer XNA's Not Acronymed can be taken as meaning both it is not a valid acronym and it could stand for "XNA's Not Acronymed" on purpose. Sort of a double entendre.(124.152.38.104 06:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC))
That's not what Microsoft's web site says. See above. — Frecklefoot | Talk 10:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I too like the self-referencing acronym, but can anyone say "Rip on GNU?" As with most things in the Microsoft world, it's not original. David Mitchell 00:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
GNU wasn't the first to do it by a long shot. If you're really going to argue "lack of originality" here, you're going to have to date it back further than GNU. --Steven Fisher 01:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Just for the record, the name "Xbox" wasn't random. Originally, it was called the DirectXbox ('cause it ran DirectX and this was right after they decided to ditch OpenGL in Win95). This article explains the whole thing a lot better than I can.
As far as the acronym goes, I wouldn't be suprised if it orginally was "Cross Platform Next generation Architecture" and then changed it. I can't pick out "indie game development framework" out of that. Why doesn't someone post on the MSDN forums and ask? « SCHLAGWERKTalk to me! 00:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I may be missing the point, but isn't it supposed to be humerous? Since XNA is an acronym that expands "XNA’s Not Acronymed", there is the contridiction that it is both an acronym and not an acronym. It seems to be more of a homage or parody of GNU, HURD, WINE, and LAME, and other "backronyms" common in software. -Hyad 07:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The first thing that springs to mind is, ironically, "Microsoft has sold out". Microsoft's using recursive acronyms now? Gee, before you know it Windows will be open source. :-) Sounds like a cheap way to add some genuine hacker flavor to a Microsoft product. 82.92.119.11 20:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Could not agree more, that bit and the whole article make me wanna puke. Microsoft are quite sly and seem to use wikipedia for free advertising a lot 60.241.89.195 10:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, I think that "XNA's Not Acronymed" is a joke (yes, Microsoft make jokes). I believe (though I can't verify) that XNA is a contraction of XBOX and DNA -- sort of the building blocks for XBOX games. To be honest, I think expanding the "acronym" in the introduction to the article looks silly... DeanHarding 08:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No 3D Sound

On a technical note, the lack of 3d sound support in XNA v1.0 and the uselessness of "XACT" make the whole thing a joke. Once you get past the hype (like this article) and try to use this XNA for a real game you start to see what a hack job it is. 60.241.89.195 10:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

3D sound will be added in the April 2007 release.

[edit] Advert

I removed the {{advert}} tag from this article, which was placed by User:204.50.199.4 without comment on 2/12. Looking at the number of different contributors to this article and the content, I do not believe this reads like an advertisement (though it may need cleanup). If you disagree, please comment here before reverting my edit. --J Morgan(talk) 14:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Please make certain the XNA page remains factual, and remains free of personal opinions. For instance, statements about XNA not being useful is based on personal experience, opinion and even bias, not fact, since there are people such as myself who do find it useful. Simply state what the XNA Framework can and cannot do. Let the reader reach their own opinion. Instead of a Critisim section, there should be a Pro and Con section for better factual balance.

Perhaps the article is not quite an advert, but...it does pretty much exclusively cite Microsoft sources, and some of the language appears to be copied from advertisements. I'm referring specifically to the second sentence of the article, 'XNA does this by freeing game designers from writing "repetitive boilerplate code,"', citing a Microsoft press release. While not exactly advertising, things like these, in my mind, draw the article's neutrality into question. It's rather one-sided, to be frank - it would be good to have a larger variety of sources. I'm not entirely certain how to achieve neutrality, though - with as controversial a company as Microsoft, there will be an abundance of trolling and very little information paydirt. 84.131.135.250 19:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Initial Community Focus Section

The section provides nothing more than the results of a google search, and the phrase "XNA Game Studio Express exited beta status first" makes no sense as there is no context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.82.189.227 (talk • contribs)

The phrase does make sense, in the context that the Express version is for the hobbyist community, and it has already been released, as opposed to the Pro version, which is not yet out there. No matter, the entire section is just link spam anyway, so I see no need to reinstate it. In similar spirit, I'm removing the link to 'George's XNA Programming', as is also link spam. I will continue to monitor this page and remove link spam every now and then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.120.188.146 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Reason for excluding skeletal animation is wrong

An MS employee has stated that skeletal animation will never be included in the framework because of negative feedback from the directx animation framework. I'll dig up the reference sometime and post it. Also, an official skinning sample has been released, as well as a community animation library, so that incorrect statement should be removed. People should know better than to give their own, unresearched opinions on topics in an encyclopedia.

[edit] Mobile

Is there any hint that this sort of thing is being worked on for the .NET Mobile Profile? Mathiastck 05:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] C# and Visual Studio only? Not so much

Despite what the XNA FAQ says, it is very possible to build an XNA game using languages other than C#, and IDEs other than Visual Studio, to make XNA games. I'm currently working on a game in the Boo language, and using SharpDevelop. It has taken a bit of work but it absolutely will build and run. I suspect any .NET based language and any IDE or compiler will work.

I agree the sentance under XNA Framework that says "Currently, games that run on the framework must be written in C# using the XNA Game Studio Express IDE." should probably be removed. It's certainly not true (as you say) and it's not really implied by the linked FAQ, either. The FAQ mentions C# with regards to the framework, and Game Studio Express is built around C# but there's nothing there that says you need to use Game Studio Express to write games against the framework. If no one has objections, I'll update the text to reflect this. DeanHarding 05:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Technically, as long as the libraries are available for linking, any .NET compliant compiler and IDE will work by C# and Game Studio is the only officially supported way. --soum talk 07:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
But where does it say C# + Game Studio are the only offically supported way? Of course they encourage you to use them, but the citation after that sentence certainly doesn't imply that C# + Game Studio is the only supported to write games. Besides, the way that sentence is worded, it says that C# + Game Studio are the only way, not the only supported way. I'm going to rewrite the sentence a little but I think I'll need some actual citation that says C# + Game Studio is the only officially supported way to write games using XNA. DeanHarding 23:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Microsoft Surface Computer

XNA is also used for much of the software written for Microsofts new Surface computer coming out soon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.124.36.198 (talk) 02:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

==

[edit] XNA vx XNA Framework vs XNA Game Studio Express

This whole article is perpetuating the myth that XNA is mostly about XNA Game Studio/Framework. Microsoft did a pretty bad job of explaining everything but Microsoft XNA is the brand that covers all of the game development technologies from Microsoft including DirectX.

I would like to propose that most of this article is moved to a new article called XNA Game Studio (the next release of game studio drops the 'express' tag. Then redirects from XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio Express will point to the XNA Game Studio article. This article will explain the overall marketing name and link out to the products that are part of it - well those big enough or established enough to have their own entries. XNA Build and XNA Team System were proposed or rumoured products which never released so will stay with the header article. --Thezbuffer 23:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

XNA might have been conceived as an umbrella brand for everything graphics related. But of late I have not seen anything but xna framework/game studio referred to by this brand. So, how about mentioning the historical perspective in a history section? How about this layout:
  1. Intro
  2. Overview (for explanation of the focus of the brand)
  3. Components
    1. XNA Framework
    2. XNA Game Studio
    3. XNA Content Pipeline
  4. Creator's Club (or whatever it is)
  5. History
  6. Criticism
Since the xna fs/game studio sections doesn't currently have much content, there is no need to split out right now. Once it grows, we can fork out any time. --soum talk 04:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
XNA GS/Framework gets the majority of publicity becuase of the fact that its targetting mass market developers whereas DirectX, XBLA, XBox etc are in general used by professional game developers only. So this gives the skewed view that GSE is all that XNA is about. Plus there has been so much misinformation that google searches and magazines are using the wrong names to refer to the products. Most of the teams within Microsoft gaming group are now called XNA {something} even if they are not to do with XNA Framework. Here's an example - the XNA Live server team http://www.randyrants.com/2007/10/xna_live_server.html.
But I see your point on a lack of content - at least not enough to split it out. I'll wait for your response and then have a shot at reorganizing the page.--Thezbuffer 20:48, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Cool. But I would suggest a monolithic article, for now. With sections for all current known components and promotions (framework, game studio, creator's club, this live server thingy et al). The overall brand may be explained in the overview section and historical perspective in history section. Once this is in place, forking out large sections (if needed) wouldn't be too hard. All the best with the rewrite. --soum talk 05:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should this article mention???

Should there be a mention of the fact that XNA's EULA says that unless you pay a licensing fee, Microsoft owns anything you create with XNA and you have to distribute the source with the game? This is not me having a moan, I don't think that Microsoft are being that unreasonable - it costs money for any company to buy dev tools for a console. I just think this fact should be in the article somewhere. I'm not sure whether or not this is the same as the Creator's Club mentioned, which doesn't say anything about distribution of source. 123.243.99.2 07:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I was just reading the EULA for XNA 2.0 and can't find anything to do with having to distribute your source. I think you misread it; they seem to be saying they own XNA, not anything you make with it. In addition, is seems the licensing fee applies only to deploying your games on an Xbox360. Elkenny (talk) 21:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Licensing conditions aren't necessarily notable, so that section shouldn't be in the article. I'm sure the infobar has a parameter for license type anyway. L337 kybldmstr (talk) 00:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Xnalogo.PNG

Image:Xnalogo.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 08:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] XNA GS 3.0 and XNA Live Community Games

The article needs to be updated now. --soum talk 06:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of released games using this toolkit

As per the list of WPF apps, would it be possible to have a sample list of released games that use this toolkit? Naelphin (talk) 13:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Starter kits

"...for rapid development of specific genres of games, such as platform, real-time strategy, and first-person shooters."

In the XNA content catalog I see an RPG, a 2D multiplayer space shooter, a tunnel shooter, a racing game and a puzzle game. No real-time strategy, platform or first-person shooters whatsoever. And that blows. I've been looking for good platform game boilerplate. --Kawachan (talk) 18:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)