Microsoft has announced that a beta version of their XNA Game Studio Express software is now available for download. For those unfamiliar with it, the XNA software is designed to make developing games for Windows and the Xbox Live Arcade much easier, allowing smaller companies and programming groups to create content for those platforms. The current beta software only supports Windows game development and can be obtained at this link. Download size is 91.1mb.
Details as per the download page;
System Requirements and Prerequisites
- Only supported on Microsoft® Windows® XP SP2 (all editions) at this time. Windows Vista will be available only in a future beta release of XNA Game Studio Express.
- Hardware requirements are identical to those for Visual Studio 2005 plus a graphics card that supports DirectX 9.0c and Shader Model 2.0.
- This release requires Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition to be installed before proceeding. You can install Visual C# Express from the Visual C# Express Download Page. However, other members of the Visual Studio 2005 line of products, for example Visual Studio 2005 Professional, can co-exist with XNA Game Studio Express (Beta) on the same computer.
What is not in this Beta (but coming soon)
While we’re very proud of this Beta milestone, it does not represent all of the great features we are enabling in XNA Game Studio Express which will be available in final release form by this holiday. Some of the key feature areas that were not able to make it into this beta include:
- The XNA Framework Content Pipeline feature is not present in this release of XNA Game Studio Express (Beta). It will be made available in a future beta release of XNA Game Studio Express
- Support for retail Xbox 360 game development. This feature will be made available upon final release of XNA Game Studio Express later this holiday
- Additional starter kits and tutorials will be made available upon final release of XNA Game Studio Express
