Hello, I am trying to follow a tutorial and have become a bit confused between the difference of a game component and a game service.  They seem as though they are one in the same.  Can someone explain the differece to in a couple of words. 

thanks

Bill

A game component is something that participates in the update/draw game loop. You should use one if your code needs to be updated and/or drawn at regular intervals. Components provide these methods that tie into the application model:

• Initialize
• LoadContent
  
• Update
• Draw

A game service is something that is registered in a centralized place, where it can be discovered by other code. You should use a service if you ever find yourself thinking "hmm, I'm over here, and now I need to get access to the FooManager, but I don't want to strongly tie this code to any particular implementation of FooManager, so I want some decoupled way of looking up if such a manager exists". Services don't imply any particular functionality as to what the object does, though: they're just a way of finding it.

Often, you will find a piece of code is both a component and a service, if it needs to be updated and drawn and also discovered by other code.