XNA on Zune

#1 The requirements for portable devices are often extremely restrictive. You may (read most likely) have to restrict the ways in which you develop your game (number of assets loaded at once, on-screen objects, memory swapping, etc). Since it was just announced, it is too early to tell whether or not all of XNA (or third-party products such as TorqueX) will be available on the Zune. You will also have to make sure that your game complies to one-handed use and 240x320 display. You also will not have access to the full XNA framework.

You can read the FAQ that they have on the link you provided.

#2 I'm really excited about this announcement! I love the idea of creating my own games and then bringing them along anywhere. Like David says, a custom version of the XNA Framework is likely. Here's an interesting exceprt from one of the XNA Framework developers:

Quote:Zune hardware isn't particularly interesting in the sense that Xbox is: it doesn't have a GPU, but the CPU is reasonably fast at least for a handheld device. You get the SpriteBatch API for graphics (plus full rendertarget support, but no 3D stuff), the same networking API we have today on Xbox and Windows, same input API (we map the Zune buttons to various properties of the GamepadState), same Game class and application model, plus some new APIs for enumerating media, starting and stopping playlists, and other cool media player stuff like that.

So, start thinking about some cool 2D multiplayer games that can tap into the local music playlist. Also keep in mind the bigger picture... Microsoft is saying that XNA is here to stay - they are clearly investing millions into this Framework. Very exciting times!

John K.

#3 Yeah. Rather than a quick-port ideology, I love the idea of being able to take my game with me. That is tres cool!

#4 I was wondering if there were any updates on the possibility of a Zune version of Torque X?

#5 In theory, you should be able to modify the Pro version of Torque X to support the Zune.

You shouldn't expect a official support at the moment, since the XNA support for Zune isn't much to talk about.

#6 I looked into this and it turns out to be not possible with Torque X. Getting XNA games to run on the Zune requires that the game renders everything using SpriteBatch. In Torque X, everything is rendered to a 2D Quad that is presented by a shader, and there's no shader support on the Zune. However, that might change with the new Zune HD - which looks awesome! But for the current Zunes, I was not able to get it working.

John K.
www.envygames.com

#7 I built a game on the Zune prior to using Torque, it was only a little 2D pong game but it's nice to entertain yourself on the go with your creation :)

I would love to see Torque on the Zune one day (Zune HD) is the most hopeful candidate.