The quick and dirty XNA Faq

Okay so some of our articles on XNA have been getting comments like these:

1.  » sweet

How do you install this? Do you just put it on a CD or do you need to buy a memory card reader or something?

by Mr. Common Sense (Unregistered), at Sept. 25, 2006 at 01:23PM

2.  » How do you pliznay the hiznomebriznew

Awesome, but how do you play “homebrew”? Please tell us how to put it on there is just a bunch of messy files. Do you have to purchace a XNA dev kit or can anyone make these games/applications? Does this mean we may see someone make a web browser or media player? How about an snes emu or other emus. Do you have to licence and get what you do approved from Microsuck? And oh yea how do you play homebrew on the 360? I thought it was going to be implemented into a future dashboard release…. omg rof

3.  » .

YEAH!!! What they said… That’s what I freaking want to know

So here’s a quick and dirty XNA info thingie-whatever-you-want-to-call-it for all of you.

1. What exactly is XNA Game studio Express?

As we’ve said before, the XNA Studio Express is a Microsoft offering that will allow students and hobbyists access game development tools for Windows and Xbox 360. XNA Game Studio Express itself contains the following:

•     The XNA Framework
•     The XNa Framework Content Pipeline
•     The XNA Game Studio Express

The beta of XNA Game studio express has already been released and can be acquired here. For now, the beta only supports Windows game development. To run XNA Studio Express, your pc is going to need Visual C# Express, and the latest DirectX run-time updates. For audio support you’re going to need the full August 2006 Direct X SDK in order to use the XAXT audio tool.

More on XNA after the jump!

Okay so some of our articles on XNA have been getting comments like these:

1.  » sweet

How do you install this? Do you just put it on a CD or do you need to buy a memory card reader or something?

by Mr. Common Sense (Unregistered), at Sept. 25, 2006 at 01:23PM

2.  » How do you pliznay the hiznomebriznew

Awesome, but how do you play “homebrew”? Please tell us how to put it on there is just a bunch of messy files. Do you have to purchace a XNA dev kit or can anyone make these games/applications? Does this mean we may see someone make a web browser or media player? How about an snes emu or other emus. Do you have to licence and get what you do approved from Microsuck? And oh yea how do you play homebrew on the 360? I thought it was going to be implemented into a future dashboard release…. omg rof

3.  » .

YEAH!!! What they said… That’s what I freaking want to know

So here’s a quick and dirty XNA info thingie-whatever-you-want-to-call-it for all of you.

1. So what exactly is XNA Game studio Express?

The XNA Studio Express is a Microsoft offering that will allow students and hobbyists access game development tools for Windows and Xbox 360. The XNA Game Studio Express itself contains the following:

•     The XNA Framework
•     The XNa Framework Content Pipeline
•     The XNA Game Studio Express

The beta of XNA Game studio express has already been released and can be acquired here. For now, the beta only supports Windows game development. To run XNA Studio Express your PC is going to need Visual C# Express, and the latest DirectX run-time updates. For audio support you’re going to need the full August 2006 Direct X SDK in order to use the XAXT audio tool.

2. Will you be able to create decent games for the Xbox 360 using either XNA Game Studio Express or the XNA Framework?

Yes, you will be able to create decent non-commercial X360 games. If you’re thinking about making games that run in Windows then yes (according to Microsoft), you can use XNA Game Studio Express to make commercial games for windows. In fact, they’ll be releasing XNA Game Studio Professional next spring to allow developers to make commercial games for the Xbox 360 as well.

3. Okay so we now go to the part that’s most important to most of you… is there a price tag for all of this?

Yes, yes there is. While the XNA Game Studio Express tools and run-time environment for Windows is free, in order to develop, debug and/or play games on the Xbox 360 you will need to purchase a XNA “Creator’s Club” subscription through the Xbox Live Marketplace. You can pay for that subscription either in one big go of a year, or for for 4 months.

For those of you who are thinking “highway robbery”, well, it’s not like that. After all, Microsoft is willing to release tools for developers to make games for their system. They’re actually open to the idea…and this is something that their opponents haven’t actively pursued.

4. So how do you share the game you made for the 360 to other 360 users?

Well, Microsoft says that at present, there’s no way to share binaries on the Xbox 360. There are ways though. First, the person you are planing to share the game with must have an active subscription to the XNA club, and be logged in to Xbox Live. Next, the receiving user must have downloaded the XNA Framework for the Xbox 360, as well as the Game Studio Express installed in their development PC. The game project, including all the source and content assets, have to be shared with the receiver. Lastly, the guy who gets the bunch of files then compiles and deploys the game to their Xbox 360. Got all that?

Well, if you’re thinking of just putting the XNA Game Studio Express game on your memory card and sharing it with your friend, sorry dude, Microsoft says that you can’t do that… for now. Also for the tech-y and the capable, Microsoft says that they do not support launching of XNA Framework based games off CD/DVD on the Xbox 360.

For those wanting to turn their Xbox into their custom media center, Microsoft says that they are looking for community feedback for the types of applications that users want to write for the Xbox 360. So if you’re one of those media player minded folks, better get vocal.

I hope that answers most of your questions about XNA.

You can go here for some XNA programming tutorials. And if you want to check out some XNA homebrew games, we have here some that you can take a look at. Also here’s a video of a neat XNA F14 Scroller you can watch to see what you can expect from XNA games.

If you got an XNA set up ready already, we’ll be featuring more XNA games offering for you to download so stay tuned for more updates. After all, we’ve featured XNA Particle Wars already… why not the rest of them?