Hi all,

As I previous had written, I was present in a workshop at Microsoft Portugal. This workshop was a slight overview of XNA but even so it was able of excite me in trying it. The speakers were Vitor Santos (Academic Computer Science Program Manager at Microsoft Portugal), Amintas Neto (Microsoft Brasil) and Verónica Orvalho (Face in Motion).

The workshop started with Vitor Santos giving an overview of XNA framework. This overview was focused on the main aspects of the framework and its future. So, XNA it’s a framework that layered most of the complex technologies that’s needed to create a game: physics, math, audio, storage, input and others.

Below you can see everything that’s necessary to create a game and the beautiful part it’s that XNA encapsulate all making it simple!

Therefore, making a game can be fun and simple but the ultimate experience can be on your xBox 360! Oh, yeah… You program your game in your computer, share it with the on-line community, you can receive upgrades of it and then you can play it on xBox 360. Isn’t that great?

Note that XNA was born last December but Microsoft it’s already creating a version 2, code name Shaman. Integration with Visual Studio, support to xBox live, 2d and 3d tools, etc. I’m seeing a promising future! After Vitor Santos, Amintas Neto spoke about the concept “consumers as creators (and players!!!)”. He presented us with the experience of Brazil on XNA and showed some demos made by a Brazilian MSP. I really liked to hear Amintas and speak to him after the workshop. Later on I’ll post it.

Coffee break, I really needed one! Not that the conference was boring but because I wake up at 5 AM. I used the coffee break to know Amintas Neto and discuss the subject with others MSP’s.

Ok, my battery was recharged and I was ready to continue with XNA demonstration. Then, Veronica Orvalho came to give a more practical view of XNA. I really loved to hear Veronica because she not only understands the technical aspects but also the industry model. But there wasn’t enough time for everything and at the end the conference, the industry model was 75% of the conference.

You can watch Veronica slides here. (to see the slide please press the arrows in your keyboard)

As I wrote above I’m really excited about XNA. So, to try it, I’ve installed visual studio 2005 express(you have to run windows update to update VS 2005 with SP1), XNA game studio express, XNA framework and some samples of XNA.

FLAH NEWS:

Me and Fabio (other MSP) will compete on Imagine Cup on the category of Game Development.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh…. As usual all MSP present and some very OLD MSP went to launch: