GDC Day 2
Word has spread! We must be doing something right...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNA_Framework
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146493.html
http://www.irishdev.com/NewsArticle.aspx?id=2157
If you haven't guessed by now, I've been spending my time at work getting a custom version of the .NET common Language Runtime (CLR) ported and running on the XBox 360 platform with the explicit purpose of running the XNA Framework. GDC 2006 was our "coming out" party. As I've been educating the conference attendees - the XNA Framework is a set of .NET APIs specifically targeted towards game development and, more importantly, game developers. The current set of APIs coalesces XACT, XInput, Managed DX 2.0, and the usual framework suspects; core classes and XML. The XNA Framework provides source code compatibility between Windows and XBox 360.
You should know that I actually don't work on the XNA Framework team. I'm actually in Microsoft's Developer Division which owns all major versions of the .NET CLR. (Thus my "platform guy" remarks in my prior blog entries)
As the GameSpot report describes, we had two demos running against the XNA Framework on both Windows XP and XBox 360 - Culture and Pocket-Jongg. Both demos are playable games, complete with exhibition mode and semi-working scoring. Source compat between the games is excellent with a very small percentage of the code conditionally compiled for the respective platform. You can check out screen shots on Mike Zintel's blog. The XNA folks did a FABULOUS job on making the demos look great. Kudos to them!
Today, there continued to be a good amount of traffic at our booth. Most developers were pleasantly surprised. Some had the, "Duh. I was wondering when you guys were going to do this" response. Answering questions and sharing our excitement made the sore feet and sore backs of all of us booth geeks totally worth it. I’ve actually gotten pretty good at Pocket-Jongg!
Fun note – after beating about 150 challengers (that's about 750 frags to about 10) Kornelia got beat! Rumor is it was the first time in THREE years that she got beat at a trade show exhibition. She beat this guys 3-5 yesterday. After studying her game play a bit yesterday, he turned the tables and beat her 5-3 today. Rubber match tomorrow, from what I understand. Stay tuned...
Cool note – a Japanese company (I’ll correct the blog with proper link later) had a cool technology. They had movies of a 3D rendered scene where each movie frame actually had a Z information mask so a real-time rendered 3D model could show up behind or in front of various parts of the pre-rendered movie. Very clever (at least for this platform guy).
In the evening, I spent time celebrating at Microsoft’s Invitation only GDC bash. It was quite fun. Great food and a bunch of crazy game dev geeks. They had several consoles set up playing Fight Night 3 – perfect game for an adult party.
Interesting note – there was a local bar that spread fliers around the GDC venue that advertised a “Come to the @#$!@#$!@#$ Microsoft GDC Party” with a $4 cover charge listed in very small print. Nice. Capitalism in action.
And now, some personal thoughts and a little bit of history.
In 1999, I moved from the Windows division to the Developer Division to begin work on the genesis of a product that eventually turned into the .NET Compact Framework. It was exciting to work on a project from scratch with a crack set of very senior developers, QA, and leadership personnel. We have now enabled a plethora of managed applications and a top class end to end developer experience for Windows Mobile devices. I personally take pride in our contribution to the Windows Mobile application market.
When I was attending Hilo High School and subsequently Purdue University, I was enthralled with the idea of creating GUI components or a cool game. I wanted to point to a screen and say – I built that. I think many developers can relate to the sentiment.
It is thus ironic that I now classify myself as a platforms guy. My GUIs look very “functional”. My focus is on displaying data and rapid development and not on aesthetics and visual appeal. My games are far from cutting edge. I dare not show them publicly.
I say it is ironic because I had to become a platforms guy to achieve an even larger accomplishment. When people ask what I do for Microsoft, I don’t have to point to a particular pixel on a display. I can say with pride that there is no one particular pixel on the screen I am responsible for. There are many creative, cool, fun, functional, junky, excellent... (insert more adjectives) ... applications that I have ENABLED. Our team continues to make that our goal.
I really feel that we’ve come full circle. When I consider the Xbox 360 platform, I can’t help but smile and be excited contemplating the unknown. The unknown? Yes definitely – the unknown smash hit Xbox 360 games that the XNA Framework will enable.
I can only hope that the rest of the game developer community is contemplating along with me.
