So there has been a lot of kerfuffle of late about XNA’s future, some wins, some losses and such.
But time to set the record straight.
(again 
)
I have been involved with several XNA related efforts and in talks with some other teams and I can now come forward with details on them, some are still rumour (but very strong reliable unconfirmed rumours, take what you will from that) others are known facts.
If you are headed down the C++ / DirectX route then I suggest you head over to the RandomChaos blog or GameDev-UK for more details there.
[ UnityXNA](https://www.synapsegaming.com/products/sunburn/engine/) – by MVI Network
[](http://unity3d.com/unity/)[](http://mvinetwork.co.uk/)
Unless you were asleep last week then you must have missed out on a big announcement from a guy called “Barnaby Smith” who is a good friend of mine from the XNA-UK days.
he has been working on an extension to the Unity3D gaming engine over the last few weeks/months and I recently got involved with him on the project (mostly testing and talking about stuff, Barnaby has done all the actual work!).
The goal of this project was to get XNA code running under the Unity Framework with 100% code re-use and limited changes required to adopt it. This includes basic content projects, custom pipeline extensions are not supported as yet.
What he has produced has outstripped even my initial views of what was possible and he announced it to the world on twitter, which then prompted his site to go down under the stress from all the re-tweets (now back and running)
[](/assets/img/wordpress/2012/07/image141.png)
This opens yet another door for games written in XNA to be easily ported to other platforms, yet another reason to prove that XNA is an excellent and easy to use prototyping platform (if nothing else).
\*CAVEAT\*
Now Barnaby is keen to stress this is just a proof of concept at the moment but I have seen and played with the code and it is very promising. Only 2D at the moment but he has still feverishly working on it.
The code has also been [pushed up to GIT](https://github.com/mvi/UnityXNA), so feel free to fork it and play with it yourself!
* * *
# [MonoGame](http://monogame.codeplex.com/) meets Windows 8
[](http://monogame.codeplex.com/)[](http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page)
Mono has always been about multi-platform from the get go and with managed code none the less.
I have attended several [Mono](http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page) events and have always been intrigued, with the launch of the community project MonoGame which was an evolution of XNA into Mono and runs very well. it is also heavily influenced on another XNA type project called [SharpDX](http://sharpdx.org/) which builds a C# framework on top of C++ with almost no noticeable overhead (over the normal managed costs).
It should come as no surprise to fellow XNA’ers that both of these frameworks look almost identical to XNA and that is simply because they came from XNA, emulation is the kindest form of flattery (but then again XNA came from the ashes of MDX and resembled that a lot!)
All of this comes from a community screaming for a Managed Environment to write 2D and 3D graphical interfaces, not all of us want or have the time to build it from scratch in C++.
I digress.
This recently hit the press with the announcement that “[Armed](http://www.sickhead.com/)” (a Windows Phone XNA game) **HAS** been ported to Windows 8 and in fact is already available on the [preview marketplace](http://t.co/16nB7D2d).
The team “[Sickhead Games](http://www.sickhead.com/)” (gotta love indie studio names ) were recently featured as guests on the Metro Developer Show last week and talk in depth about their experience in taking MonoGame to Windows 8, yet another flag in the XNA camp.
By all accounts once the XNA/MonoGame framework was made Windows 8 ready, the porting of the actual game was quoted as being “trivial”
* * *
# The future’s so bright I’ve gotta wear shades
Life in managed code is still the future, especially for individuals / small indie companies and in some larger game houses it is still used as a rapid prototyping tool before making it in C++.
I am not going to get in to the whole C++ vs Managed argument, there is stats out there showing the figures and it always comes down to the right tool for the right job, yes if you need ultra high performance from a “COMPONENT” then C++ is usually the best answer (I’m not going to debate that). Bringing C++/DirectX to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 is essential for the platform to woo and reassure the BIG AAA game companies that it is a valid platform and they should consider these platforms for their IP.
BUT ALL of Windows Phone 3D games (and a lot of 2D as well) plus a great portion of XBOX titles and quite a few titles on [Desura](http://www.desura.com/), [Steam](http://store.steampowered.com/) and [IndieCity](http://store.indiecity.com/) are XNA games, so I have no problem building XNA projects for a long time to come, sure I’m expanding my horizons for the sake of the blog and my own sanity, but managed is my life at the moment and likely to stay that way for a times to come.
If you want to know more about C++ / DirectX then I suggest you head over to the [RandomChaos blog](http://bit.ly/LMSHWD) or [GameDev-UK](http://www.gamedev-uk.net/)
* * *
# A parting gift
Just one last thing to wrap up the conclusion of this article.
Microsoft have been getting VERY good at keeping things wrapped up and secret of late, no one saw the Microsoft Surface coming (and it had been in development for over 3 Years), almost no one knew the full details on Windows Phone 8.
There has still been no word about XNA at all and some who have had direct involvement with MS have simply been told “No Comment”. if they did indeed intend to kill off XNA then they would have no qualms doing so as past experience has “supposedly” told us that XNA is not in their focus.
My advice as always, quit speculation and lets just see. XNA works fine as it is (granted only DX9 but just look at what people have managed to create with it!, as INDIES), granted it could do with some improvements but as the above shows, the community is already stepping up to the plate with that!
Simon (darkside) Jackson
Engineer, industry executive, research enthusiast. Avid learner with diverse interests in coding, game development, Mixed Reality (AR/VR/XR) and reinforcement learning. 25+ years of experience working in multinational corporations and startups.
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