Jason Mauer set out to destroy the universe with Microsoft XNA at Silicon Valley Codecamp 2008. No, XNA is not a doomsday device from Microsoft. XNA can be a confusing term thanks to MSFT marketing, but in a nutshell it is a next generation game development platform for PC, XBox 360, and Zune. XNA, as an initiative, is set to develop and improve the game development ecosystem. XNA is a pseudo acronym, it doesn’t mean anything.
Prior to XNA, the game industry was seen as very sick, games where mainly sequels much like the movie industry. XNA is set out to revitalize and revolutionize the game industry for casual gamers, hobbyist, academia, etc. Games are supposed to be fun, it is not just about graphics, blockbuster, licensed content, first person shoot and bomb them ups. Goals of XNA is to become the ‘youtube’ of games without the lawsuits for copyright infringements.
This session covered some of the history and basics of XNA. At the end of the session, we did have some time to see some demos created by the XNA Creators Club.
Technorati Tags: xna, ms, xbox, zune, game, development, directx, opengl, graphics, codecamp
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