Chapter 1. Introducing XNA Game Studio

Since its initial release in 2006, the Microsoft XNA Framework has allowed C# developers to harness the power of DirectX to create video games that can be targeted to Windows, the Xbox 360, and Microsoft-based mobile devices such as the Zune or the Windows Phone 7 platform.

XNA consists of the XNA Framework, which is a set of code libraries to perform common graphics, sound, and other game-related tasks, and XNA Game Studio, which is an extension of the Visual Studio interface that includes a number of project templates to make use of the XNA Framework.

The XNA project templates include an integrated game loop, easy-to-use (and fast) methods to display graphics, full support for 3D models, and simple access to multiple types of input devices.

With the summer 2011 release of the XNA 4.0 Refresh, Microsoft has provided what has been cited as both the most requested feature for XNA and the most requested feature of Visual Basic developers: the ability to use Visual Basic as the backend for coding XNA projects.

Tip

What does XNA stand for, anyway?

According to the developers, XNA is an acronym for "XNA's Not Acronymed".

In this introductory chapter, you will:

  • Look at an overview of the games presented in this book
  • Download and install the Windows Phone Developers Tools, which includes the Visual Studio Express and the XNA Extensions for Visual Studio
  • Create a new Windows game project
  • Modify the default Windows Game template to build your first XNA game
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