As a postmortem for the book , I thought I’d highlight some useful things I learned. How did this get started? An editor at Apress contacted me (via blog) letting me know they were seeking an author to write a book on Zune game development. The content...

The main thing that’s kept me from blogging for so long is my new book , which comes out March 24th. This book covers a lot of stuff from the ground up and includes 20-something full examples that are explained basically line-by-line. A lot of work went...

My goodness, how time flies when you are busy! Blogging has always been on my mind, but recently, Alfred Thompson brought up the point that people actually miss the content I put out. Since my last post, I've been involved in an awesome project which...

Woohoo! The moment you’ve all been waiting for is here. Christmas has come early – XNA Game Studio 3.0 is now available. Go get it! The majorly awesome part of this release is support for Zune games, a topic on which I’m currently writing a book. I’ll...

At PDC, I got my first hands-on experience with Windows 7 running on the HP TouchSmart units in the partner expo area. A few things I picked up from the keynote that I really liked: Apps don’t necessarily have to explicitly support multitouch to work...

Wow! What a crazy start to my trip. Yesterday (Sunday) I left Tampa at about 3pm EST and didn’t arrive at the Kyoto Grand Hotel until about midnight PST, making it right around 12 round hours of travel. After arriving here I went with my friend and colleague...

I’ll be at PDC2008 through Thursday, helping my friend Clint Rutkas demo his amazing Skateboard Segway in the Channel9 / Coding4Fun area at the convention center. Come by and visit us! I will also be documenting the experience over on Facebook in the...

If you are in the Miami / Fort Lauderdale area, come visit me at the Microsoft Across America innovation truck in the convention center parking lot at 3500 Pan American Dr., Miami, FL 33133. I’ll be demoing Microsoft Surface, Zune, Xbox 360, Windows Home...

Are you a student, professor, teacher, academic, or hobbyist? Do you want a deeper discussion with Microsoft about the tech you love, careers, tips and tricks and more? Come join the discussion on Facebook. Microphone on Facebook Microphone connects you...

Due to a large volume of requests, I have added a new video to the series! This new video serves as an introduction to the long and difficult 6a-6c miniseries which deals with rigging, weight painting and animation. Many of you mentioned that I didn’t...

Through my work on this blog and my interactions with industry peeps at Microsoft-sponsored events, I’ve gained a lot of insight (as well as plenty of questions) as to how one might pursue a career in the game industry. Now, as a disclaimer, I’ve never...

If you’re making a game for the Zune, it’s an obvious feature to be able to play music, integrating the user’s playlist as a soundtrack to the game. XNA Game Studio 3.0 adds some new framework features that makes it easy not only to play music, but also...

Many thanks to Shane DeSeranno of the Zune team for helping me wrap my head around this concept. One of my previous posts included a simple game called Robot Tag . The concept I used for this game is that each peer is always reporting its position and...

A reader Jason points out that the source code didn't include the ZuneScreenManager project, which is necessary to build. Have no fear... Just follow the original link to download the file again if you downloaded it before 1:08 AM Eastern Time on June...

And as promised, here's the code walkthrough / conclusion video (download here [39.6 MB]).

Well hello there! I wanted to share with you the latest installment in my Zune series: Building a networked Zune game. The potential is huge - imagine a group of six people playing Monopoly wirelessly on their Zunes, or some other board or card game....

If you've ever wanted to get a brief understanding of what happens at the Imagine Cup, there is a new page over at Microsoft4Me detailing the projects of the US finalists, complete with videos of their presentations to the judges. You can learn about...

Do you remember the excitement, the buzz, and the fantastic entries of last year's Dream-Build-Play contest? Well, it's back again! Dream Build Play 2008 is a premier game development competition allowing you to complete with other game developers on...

I've covered Game State briefly in the past, but I have always used complex switch statements to handle different logical scenarios within the game. This works for small, simple examples, but is not optimal for more complex projects. In the coming weeks...

Imagine yourself opening up a Messenger chat with someone who just bought a new house. "I'm so excited," they say, "that I took 30 pictures and want you to check them out." One by one, they drag a picture into the window. You click...

It has been fifteen months since I last reformatted this machine. In that time, I've read hundreds of thousands of emails, installed countless alpha/beta/CTP software, multiple SKUs of Visual Studio, many video editing programs, and much more.  ...

Just a quick FYI that the link to the GuitarrMatey source code has been updated (the link is still the same, but the destination has been corrected). DOWNLOAD ZE SOURCE!

Having trouble downloading the GuitarrMatey source? In the wake of the awesome new Creators Club website design it seems to have been moved somewhere. I'll let you know when it's fixed... Stay tuned!

The popular GuitarrMatey blog post I wrote has been featured on the new Creator's Club website , with quite a bit of backstory and explanation of the design. Check it out here !

As promised at GDC 2008, the XNA team has released two major components today in their pursuit to democratize game development (read: more resources for you, and get your games on Xbox Live!) First, the Community Games on Xbox Live program is now in beta...