The ZBuffer : .Net on XBox360 Dev Kit

Links to XNA presentations on microsoft.com

Mike Zintel from the compact framework team posted a very interesting blog post this morning.

I also know that working with the Xbox team has been among the most enjoyable and productive cross group work that I’ve done. I know that my team and the XNA team within Xbox, have been burning the midnight oil to allow us to demonstrate the feasibility of games written in managed code running on a .NET CLR on a final 360 dev kit. And I know that we’ve demonstrated the same game binary (almost the same; oh so close) running on the 360 kit, Windows and on Windows Mobile.

Plus news from Tom:

...I've recently switched groups over to the Xbox team (and the XNA team specifically), and I'm quite excited about the stuff we're working on....Don't think this means I've "forgotten" about MDX though, believe me, I haven't.....Like I said a few blog posts ago, we're starting the revolution of managed code in gaming.

And now David Weller has a choice quote or 2:

...we have some wicked cool stuff to announce and demonstrate at the GDC. We even have a prototype of a CLR-based graphics app running on a 360 dev kit! Drool-tastic..... I do want to say one thing about Tom's departure from the DirectX team...it doesn't mean the end of DirectX support in the Common Language Runtime. Quite the opposite. We love the CLR and we are seeing more and more adoption and usage of the CLR in conjunction with DirectX applications. We will have some exciting announcements in the not too distant future about where we are going along that path....

If you want to read more about the XNA offerings that will be announced at GDC then check out Micheal Klucher's blog and another entry on David Weller's.

Other than '.Net running on 360 Dev Kit' (and I've been asked to clarify that its just a dev kit) and 'something will be demoed at GDC', there is nothing concrete here but I assume that will stop none of you from speculating about what this means. In fact email me with your speculations, I'll post the best....

Speculation from the community. Let me assure you that none of these quotes are from anyone at Microsoft and, as far as I know, are not from anyone with inside information. I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone is close to the truth if and when we find out more.

P.G.: I truly believe that it's a step in the right direction for development. It's been a awesome run so far and the adoption of MDX in the community has been great.

J.M.: Awesome! I can't wait to see what comes of it. I wonder if there will be an easy path to publishing an xbox live arcade game using mdx. Imagine rocket commander on xbox live arcade :-)

M.R.: Chances are that you'll see the CLR come down on the Xbox 360 and used primarily for Xbox Live Arcade games at first. People can develop games for Vista using managed code and the Windows Common Controller (XInput), and if the game is well-received, drop the executable on Xbox 360 Marketplace and bring in the moolah.

T.L.R: I think the sure way for the 360 to be heavily adopted is to make it a hobbyist box...That way they could have a xbox live portal that sold independent developer's casual games

Of course Casey has an opinion: ...has got me grinning from ear to ear. YEA! hope we hear more at the upcoming GDC. er, um ... anyone for NASAs WorldWind on the XBox 360 :)

As does Jason: Now that's interesting! How much more information do we need before we can start "putting together the puzzle pieces" in order to form the full picture?

Does Joe know more than he is saying?: I assure you the time proximity of these posts to each other, and to GDC next week is no coincidence.....So if Tom is 'quite excited' about what he's working on, well it doesn't take a lot of imagination to connect the dots.

J.M.: Mike Zintel seems to have gone off his rocker. Or has he? Games? The Xbox Team? .NET? What's really going on here? This could be huge...

Final quote for now from Dan: In Summary: I. Love. This. Company.

Winner of the craziest theory J.S.: Microsoft is going to make the xbox360 their own version of the mac, meaning a $200 PC (able to run basically any .NET app). Since if they port .NET to the xbox360, they get the ability to do that basically for free, Microsoft owning the hardware, free of all the back-compat baggage that's been stuck on them over the last 20 years

Speculation on Garage Games forum (including a link to a 1 year old prophecy), Flat Red Ball forums and GameDev.Net forums

I've had a reasonable amount of traffic from http://knowledge.ea.com/industrynews/item.aspx?id=13152 and http://www.worldwide.ea.com/industrynews/item.aspx?id=13152, which are internal EA intranet links so this was also of interest to them.


Search ZBuffer News Articles Downloads Links FAQ Blogs/People Games Applications Technology Game Engines Tutorials Books Game Dev Tools Resources Forums About Advertise Contact ZMan Privacy Partners Ad Survey	.Net on XBox360 Dev Kit Links to XNA presentations on microsoft.com Mike Zintel from the compact framework team posted a very interesting blog post this morning. I also know that working with the Xbox team has been among the most enjoyable and productive cross group work that I’ve done. I know that my team and the XNA team within Xbox, have been burning the midnight oil to allow us to demonstrate the feasibility of games written in managed code running on a .NET CLR on a final 360 dev kit. And I know that we’ve demonstrated the same game binary (almost the same; oh so close) running on the 360 kit, Windows and on Windows Mobile. Plus news from Tom: ...I've recently switched groups over to the Xbox team (and the XNA team specifically), and I'm quite excited about the stuff we're working on....Don't think this means I've "forgotten" about MDX though, believe me, I haven't.....Like I said a few blog posts ago, we're starting the revolution of managed code in gaming. And now David Weller has a choice quote or 2: ...we have some wicked cool stuff to announce and demonstrate at the GDC. We even have a prototype of a CLR-based graphics app running on a 360 dev kit! Drool-tastic..... I do want to say one thing about Tom's departure from the DirectX team...it doesn't mean the end of DirectX support in the Common Language Runtime. Quite the opposite. We love the CLR and we are seeing more and more adoption and usage of the CLR in conjunction with DirectX applications. We will have some exciting announcements in the not too distant future about where we are going along that path.... If you want to read more about the XNA offerings that will be announced at GDC then check out Micheal Klucher's blog and another entry on David Weller's. Other than '.Net running on 360 Dev Kit' (and I've been asked to clarify that its just a dev kit) and 'something will be demoed at GDC', there is nothing concrete here but I assume that will stop none of you from speculating about what this means. In fact email me with your speculations, I'll post the best.... Speculation from the community. Let me assure you that none of these quotes are from anyone at Microsoft and, as far as I know, are not from anyone with inside information. I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone is close to the truth if and when we find out more. P.G.: I truly believe that it's a step in the right direction for development. It's been a awesome run so far and the adoption of MDX in the community has been great. J.M.: Awesome! I can't wait to see what comes of it. I wonder if there will be an easy path to publishing an xbox live arcade game using mdx. Imagine rocket commander on xbox live arcade :-) M.R.: Chances are that you'll see the CLR come down on the Xbox 360 and used primarily for Xbox Live Arcade games at first. People can develop games for Vista using managed code and the Windows Common Controller (XInput), and if the game is well-received, drop the executable on Xbox 360 Marketplace and bring in the moolah. T.L.R: I think the sure way for the 360 to be heavily adopted is to make it a hobbyist box...That way they could have a xbox live portal that sold independent developer's casual games Of course Casey has an opinion: ...has got me grinning from ear to ear. YEA! hope we hear more at the upcoming GDC. er, um ... anyone for NASAs WorldWind on the XBox 360 :) As does Jason: Now that's interesting! How much more information do we need before we can start "putting together the puzzle pieces" in order to form the full picture? Does Joe know more than he is saying?: I assure you the time proximity of these posts to each other, and to GDC next week is no coincidence.....So if Tom is 'quite excited' about what he's working on, well it doesn't take a lot of imagination to connect the dots. J.M.: Mike Zintel seems to have gone off his rocker. Or has he? Games? The Xbox Team? .NET? What's really going on here? This could be huge... Final quote for now from Dan: In Summary: I. Love. This. Company. Winner of the craziest theory J.S.: Microsoft is going to make the xbox360 their own version of the mac, meaning a $200 PC (able to run basically any .NET app). Since if they port .NET to the xbox360, they get the ability to do that basically for free, Microsoft owning the hardware, free of all the back-compat baggage that's been stuck on them over the last 20 years Speculation on Garage Games forum (including a link to a 1 year old prophecy), Flat Red Ball forums and GameDev.Net forums I've had a reasonable amount of traffic from http://knowledge.ea.com/industrynews/item.aspx?id=13152 and http://www.worldwide.ea.com/industrynews/item.aspx?id=13152, which are internal EA intranet links so this was also of interest to them. Updated 3/16/2006 1:15:00 AM by Zman