XNA in Windows 8

So, I'm seeing all over Twitter than Jon Lam said that there will be no XNA in Windows 8.  Has anyone else been able to get more confirmation?

And what does this mean?  

I assume that it will work in the Desktop app.  But does that mean there will be no XNA support at all on ARM devices?  And does this mean that MS is planning on phasing out XNA completely?  No DX11 access using XNA?

I assume DirectX is available through WinRT which means you can use it from your .net application. Why should XNA still exist?

@ZippyV: because XNA is more than just a managed wrapper for DirectX? Think libraries etc.

There is this:

"Create immersive games using the power of DirectX
The new Windows 8 graphics stack is better integrated, making Direct2D, Direct3D, and DirectCompute components easier to use together and requiring fewer duplicated resources than before. Capabilities previously available only in XNA, such as DirectXMath, XAudio2, and XInput, are now available. For the ultimate experience in gaming and video, use DirectX 11.1 to bring stereoscopic 3D to your apps."

from http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/E/4/1E455D53-C382-4A39-BA73-55413F183333/Windows_Developer_Preview-Windows8_guide.pdf

Hmmm... no WP7 games on Windows 8 then... MS must've wanted better system control from games, since XNA can take over the hardware and do whatever it wants

 What Bas said is true, XNA is more than a wrapper. You can also put your XNA games on the XBOX. Maybe there'll be a different form of XNA but it'd be stupid of MS to remove it. 

Current XNA will still work just the same on Windows 8, it'll just use the current XNA implementation that runs on DirectX 9.  You won't get the DirectX 11 goodies, but you should still be able to port WP7/Xbox games just fine and run them under the desktop UI (full screen of course).  Since you can add link tiles in the Metro UI to desktop apps, you should essentially have the same experience, just not DirectX 11-ified until they can get a version of XNA ready to go that's compatible with 11.

But the desktop UI isn't going to be available in the ARM version of Windows 8. Thus your XNA games will not be available on ARM powered tablets.

Documentation says, if you want to write a Metro game with fancy 3D graphics the only option is C++/Direct3D.  Which makes sense since that's what 99% of games are made in today anyway, but it makes me sad that there's no XNA story.

12 hours ago,ryanhayes wrote

Current XNA will still work just the same on Windows 8, it'll just use the current XNA implementation that runs on DirectX 9.  You won't get the DirectX 11 goodies, but you should still be able to port WP7/Xbox games just fine and run them under the desktop UI (full screen of course).  Since you can add link tiles in the Metro UI to desktop apps, you should essentially have the same experience, just not DirectX 11-ified until they can get a version of XNA ready to go that's compatible with 11.

Yes, you can't just assume that XNA will never get updated to use DX11.

I also vote for XNA being supported for Metro Style Games. As an Indie, we are developing our games on various platforms where XNA is the most modern and easy to grasp platform we ever used. Not only the framework but C# as a language adds into that as well. It would be shame to re-code our games via C++/DirectX which we already developed flawlessly and easily for WP7 and Xbox 360 using XNA/C#.

Also since the Windows Store will only be used to sell Metro Style Apps, it doesn't matter whether it already works in desktop, which won't be available in ARM as well, as it'll be crucial to have games as Metro Style apps to reach the revenue source.

With WinRT it'll be much easier to use DirectX directly from C# and doubtless there will be a number of 3rd party helper libraries to supplement doing this. Whilst it's not quite XNA, it's easy to see why Microsoft would choose to leave that out for now, as XNA has hardly received a significant level of interest for commercial Windows based games developers.

Reimplement XNA in native code with DX11 then expose it as WinRT make more sense.

Or, just write the graphics rendering code in C++

Plus, there is a Windows.UI.Xaml.DrawingSurface control and a Windows.UI.Xaml.Graphics namespace, just hidden.

@felix9 , so far, it seems it's only possible to use DirectX with C++ if I'm not mistaken. I didn't dig into the details of C++/C# mixture but for us, we already use another framework we developed on top of XNA to ease our porting from/to iOS and/or Android so if there is any such possibility, we might go that route as well though still means extra work.

@AndyC , with Windows 8, it's more about Indie devs rather than big studios. Windows Store, as similar to other store implementations, allows the entry barrier to reach a global user base much lower than before. At that point, for small studios such as us, it's more important to being productive than using the lowest level of API, unless you are developing something that pushes the hardware to it's limits. I know that XNA didn't change the world of Windows Game development in the past but with the reasons above, it's now much more important and I bet if there was (or will be) XNA/C#, it'll be used to develop games much more than DirectX/C++ in Windows 8 Metro Games . 

I totally agree with Ozden. XNA has never been about creating bleeding edge, hardware-choking graphics, but rather to lower the entry threshold of game development...and it worked for me, giving me time to delve into the problem domain (math and so forth) rather than dealing with memory handling and C++ language in general. This only worked so well because of the high level of abstraction that the class Framework delivers.

I just thought to myself that it would be great to develop XNA games for a OS that runs well on tablets, and now I read that XNA will be discontinued...damn it. I really hope that there will be a way to put XNA games to the Windows 8 Store, otherwise there'll have to be a lot of re-implementing...

@edelmeier:

I wonder if there is DX11.1 XNA for X720. If that's going to happen, I think a PC Game XNA version shouldn't be too far off.

My cross-platform 3D library will soon have full support for Windows 8 metro apps. Run your 3D apps on Windows Phone,Windows, Linux, and soon, Windows 8

Excuse me, Pls reply my question (damn my English )

In XNA framework for WP7 , is possible this ?

This is possible my Wp7 Snapdragon and Adreno 200 ?

The problem is Wp7 hardware or XNA framework ?

Pls respond my question is important.