Phew! We finally launched XNA Game Studio 2.0! I don't think our team could be happier with some of the stuff we accomplished in this release. We've still got plenty more feature requests and ideas to keep us going for several years though :-) If you haven't taken some time to add your most wanted feature to Microsoft Connect yet, now would be a great time so we see it when we start planning our next release.
Shipping software and games is always such a weird feeling for me, kind of like going 100MPH and then slamming into a brick wall. You spend all these late nights working, fixing issues making sure that everything is coordinated for the release. Things get really crazy the day of the release I'm in panic mode, trying to make sure everything is working and wrangling things together then it doesn't. Then all of a sudden everyone is downloading, everything is running and that's it, you're done. There always tend to be small issues like the ones you see on the forums and such, but overall the release is over. So naturally I crash and get a day's worth of sleep, and then the next day I come into work and it feels awkward. There's no rush, no panic, no pressing issues all in about a day. Don't get me wrong I'm thankful nobody is having serious issues. (Hopefully your not anyway, if you are check our forums) but I come into work and ask "Okay what do I do know?".
The answer boils down to thinking and planning. This is where most of the team goes off and starts thinking about features, fixes, and enhancements to the next version of XNA Game Studio. It's a great thing because you get to start of thinking big, where time or resources aren't a concern. Once you get that list you can start thinking about what fits in a given timeframe, what do customers want, and ask the question "Is what we've come up with something worth upgrading to?" if not you start changing all the variables till you have a compelling release.
That's why as you're having fun with XNA Game Studio 2.0 it's important to keep in mind what you want to see next. We constantly go through our Microsoft Connect suggestions and use that as data points when we talk about features. The fact that supporting all versions of Visual Studio 2005 was the highest rated XNA Game Studio suggestion and that it showed up in 2.0 wasn't a coincidence, so please keep that feedback coming!
I've been posting quite a bit the last few weeks on the XNA Team Blog about XNA Game Studio 2.0 and some of the new features that will be available. Today I posted about how XNA Game Studio 2.0 Xbox games will work and be integrated on your Xbox 360 console.
Personally, I am really excited about this feature. As we were working with the Xbox LIVE Arcade team on this functionality we wanted to make sure that working with XNA Creators Club Content (That's what we call a deployed XNA Framework Game) was a seamless as possible. We also wanted to make sure that we supported the same features as other games like providing icons and descriptions. It's worth keeping in mind that the same restrictions still exist in that you need to be online as well as have an XNA Creators Club membership to play these games.
After seeing it working, it's awesome to see that I can have a game that I deployed sitting right next to Halo or other professional games, it somehow makes my games feel more "real". While we still have some work to go to make it exactly like other games, this is a huge step in the right direction and I'm glad that your list of games isn't buried in another application. I hope that you too find the new functionality a vast improvement over the way games worked in the XNA Game Launcher.
If you're planning on using XNA Game Studio Connect to deploy your games, you'll want to make sure that you pick up the Fall dashboard update tomorrow as it's required to run XNA Game Studio Connect. All you should need to do is connect to Xbox LIVE!