XNA Game Studio 4.0 Not for Zune HD - Just Windows, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7

With the upcoming version of XNA Game Studio, Microsoft has decided to virtually ignore its digital media player as a gaming platform. According to Michael Klucher, lead program manager for the XNA Development Platform, Microsoft has decided to focus on Windows (including Windows 7), Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 and leave Zune and Zune HD completely out. With the advent of Zune HD, Microsoft opened a new door for game developers aiming for mobile devices, by introducing 3D gaming capabilities into the media player. In mid-September 2009, Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 Zune Extensions was released with the specific purpose of supporting game development on the Zune HD. It is now clear that Windows Mobile 7 and not Zune or Zune HD is the mobile gaming platform of choice for the software giant.

“Development for the Zune and Zune HD will continue to exist in XNA Game Studio 3.1, however, in XNA Game Studio 4.0, we’re encouraging you to migrate your games over to the Windows Phone 7 Series platform. We tested this a lot during development and had games like Hexic and Goo Splat up and running in an hour or so, it’s very easy! Finally, we learned some valuable lessons on launching a development platform. One of those lessons is that you need a way to bring your ideas to consumers at launch. All of us at Microsoft have heard that feedback, and I will say that it doesn’t matter what type of game developer you are, you’ll be able to find the perfect audience on Windows Phone 7 series,” Klucher stated.

Shawn Hargreaves, Microsoft XNA developer, underlined the fact that devs would need to turn to the previous release of XNA Game Studio in order to build content for Zune and Zune HD. “Zune continues to be supported via Game Studio 3.1. For Game Studio 4.0, we chose to concentrate our (finite) resources on the Windows Phone platform instead. This does not mean you can no longer make games for Zune, though! As with previous versions, Game Studio 3.1 and 4.0 will coexist happily in a side-by-side install,” Hargreaves explained.

There are a range of new features and capabilities that have been added to XNA Game Studio 4.0, a complete list is available at the bottom of this article. However, while Windows is among the supported platforms, developers using XNA Game Studio should not expect extensive DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 support. XNA Game Studio 4.0 won’t allow devs to take advantage of DX features such as tessellation and displacement.

“Our new feature work was primarily driven by the addition of the phone platform. This work has significant benefits on other platforms in terms of increased API consistency, usability, etc, but we did not add new Windows-only features such as tessellation,” Hargreaves added.

And just in case you were wondering, no, Microsoft hasn’t revealed an availability deadline for XNA Game Studio 4.0. The Redmond company has indicated that it has no specific launch date information it wants to share at this point in time.

Hargreaves enumerated some of the new features of XNA Game Studio 4.0:

“- New platform:

Windows Phone 7 Series;

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- New features:

Integrates with Visual Studio 2010; Dynamic audio output; Microphone input; BasicEffect has four new siblings: SkinnedEffect, EnvironmentMapEffect, DualTextureEffect , AlphaTestEffect;

“- Improved portability and usability: