Foreword

It's hard to believe the runaway popularity XNA has achieved in the short period of time since it was released in late 2006. At that time, I got together with a couple friends to check out (with some trepidation, I must confess) whether games really could be written in managed code.

We were very excited, and everyone wanted to know if you could get the same benefits you obtain from writing games using managed code as you do when creating standard Windows programs. We knew people in the game programming community were worried about managed code's execution speed, and many people simply didn't believe a "real" game could be created using XNA. As time passed, though, more and more people began to realize the truth: there are a great number of benefits to using managed code, and the performance concerns are exaggerated.

You haven't experienced the full potential of the Xbox 360 or, indeed, Windows until you've created your own homegrown games for these innovative systems—and with the XNA Framework, the only limit is your imagination!

From an educational perspective, due to its simplicity, XNA is also a great choice for anyone who wants to learn or teach the C# programming language. That's not to mention the fact that game development offers an excellent common ground for collaboration between computer science students and their counterparts in other disciplines such music, the arts, design, and so on.

In fact, XNA has become such an important technology for Microsoft that it created a new game development category for the famous Imagine Cup (http://www.imaginecup.com), the largest student contest run by the company.

With the release of the XNA Framework 3.0, as back in 2006, I have again become excited about the future of game development. And when I see a book like this, which explains the basics of game programming and XNA in a clear and simple style, I get even more excited, and I hope you will be as well.

Whether you've never tried to write a game before or are simply looking for advice on the best way to do things in XNA, I think you'll be happy with what you find. After reading this book, you'll be able to apply your newfound knowledge to write your own XNA cross-platform games.

I'm waiting to see what the ever-growing community of XNA game developers will create next. It's exciting to think that we'll probably see games that break all the rules of the current gaming genres we see today, because with a vibrant community comes innovation, and with innovation comes truly unique ideas.

I look forward to the games of the future—I hope you'll be the person writing them!

Amintas Lopes Neto

Academic Relations Manager, Microsoft Brazil