XNA Game Studio Express
December 18, 2006 — Daniel LivingstoneAt Paisley we’re taking a close look at Microsoft’s XNA. Free by itself, but with the annual subscription-based Creator’s Club, it’s possible to develop games which will run on the XBox 360. Nevermind that that process of creating games is largely unchanged, there is something that student’s find appealing in writing software that runs on a console.
Garage Games’ Torque X game engine is also launched to further simplify game creation.
The key benefit of XNA is it drastically simplifies development compared to using DirectX. Most colleges teach OpenGL over DirectX for various reasons - ease of use for learner programmers being a big one. I can see this tempting many more colleges to consider the Microsoft alternative.
December 18, 2006 at 3:33 pm
I’ve been teaching with this (XNA and C#) at the University of Ulster in the past semester. Best experience I’ve had with students yet.
December 18, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Cool. Will have to chat about it sometime…
I think inertia is a big problem - once you have a good set of materials to support one technology its a big dis-incentive to start again for a new technology unless the differences are really compelling.
Did you use OpenGL before, or did you transition from DirectX?
January 3, 2007 at 1:57 am
Can you share your syllabus with teaching with XNA? Thanks.
January 3, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I assume that’s a question for Darryl… I’ve still not had a chance to look at XNA at all, though a couple of my colleagues recently went down to visit Rare and Microsoft and had a days hands on. Both were quite impressed with the prospect of XNA as a means for introducing 3D graphics.