Nick,

Could you perhaps post a link as to where you've picked up this information? I can see that perhaps since your are an MVP you are more "in-the-know" than other folks, such as myself. All the information that I've been able to get a hold of seems to indicate that 1) Games already reviewed & passed will automatically be moved to Live Marketplace at that time and 2) while GS 3.0 will be officially released this holiday season, one can still build and sell their product using GS 2.0 - and continue to get it onto Live Marketplace using 2.0.

I find this rather concerning; the possibility that only games built using GS 3.0 will be able to proceed to the Live Marketplace. For instance, when reading the blurb on the 3.0 CTP page it says:

"Special Note: If you are looking to build games for the Xbox 360 console and submit them to community games on Xbox LIVE, please continue to use XNA Game Studio 2.0. The XNA Game Studio 3.0 Community Technical Preview (CTP) cannot be used to create Xbox 360 games or games that can be submitted to community games on Xbox LIVE."

As to games already approved being revoked to only re-submit, the main XBox Live Community FAQ says this:

We currently have no plans to delist or remove any game successfully approved by the community and listed in our catalog. Inappropriate games can still get removed of course through our abuse reporting mechanisms.

And nowhere in this (or anything else I have been able to find) is it stated that one must build/ship with 3.0. Which seems to imply that perhaps, 2.0 built games would get "grandfathered" in (?)

Unless I'm wrong, the current build that's available of GS 3.0 does not allow projects to be built for and executed on, the XBox 360.

Could you please clearify?

-s

Once we enable the final system, all the content will be reset. The games that are submitted and approved during the beta are only for the beta, and will never be visible to end user Xbox customers. To show up in the final version, games must be submitted through that final version after it is released for real.

The final version will only accept 3.0 games.

While I can only speak for myself on this next thing but, it would greatly help if the current state of GS 3.0 wasn't so crippled so that folks may be able to compile and run xbox built games locally. Is there plans to release a version of GS 3.0 to premium members so that they may start building xbox product ahead of time? Even though, obviously nothing could be released until it's all live and official.

 And if there's not, then will games being built now - using 2.0 - be faced with a rather lengthy conversion process to 3.0 later? I remember several years ago (late-late 90's, early 00's) where DirectX (mainly D3D/DDraw) made an absolutely huge change between a single version that entire D3D rendering layer had to practically be re-written. Development studios both big and small were pushed back weeks because of it. This situation is what I'm almost afraid of getting into. Any information you can pass on, I would *greatly* appreciate. :)

-s

I wouldn't expect the upgrade from 2.0 to 3.0 to be particularly difficult. If you are worried about this, you could get your game building with the CTP bits on Windows as a test to see how long that takes. But note that the CTP doesn't include the project upgrade wizard, which will be included in the final product.

Alternate State Entertainment:

it would greatly help if the current state of GS 3.0 wasn't so crippled so that folks may be able to compile and run xbox built games locally

In order to allow you to deploy stuff to Xbox, they must put the Xbox bits online on the Xbox Marketplace, which is probably a long, tedious and time-consuming process. This is most likely the reason only release versions of XNA GS ever got the ability to deploy to the Xbox. Plus, I highly doubt the Xbox content management guys are ok with the idea of having "beta" software on their platform.

Alternate State Entertainment:

Is there plans to release a version of GS 3.0 to premium members so that they may start building xbox product ahead of time?

Yes, there are. The version is called the release version, coming this holiday.

Alternate State Entertainment:

And if there's not, then will games being built now - using 2.0 - be faced with a rather lengthy conversion process to 3.0 later?

 From what we've seen so far, changes to the API from 2.0 to 3.0 are minimal. And most of them are "additions", instead of "changes".

 As Shawn said (and he would know best) we'll also get a project conversion wizard, which should help a lot.

Alternate State Entertainment:

After downloading the 2008 visual studio demo and GS 3.0, I browsed through the 3.0 docs to which I was pleasantly surprised that it was mostly the same.

Nick Gravelyn:

Alternate State Entertainment:

After downloading the 2008 visual studio demo and GS 3.0, I browsed through the 3.0 docs to which I was pleasantly surprised that it was mostly the same.

Note that those docs aren't complete and are largely just the GS 2.0 docs bundled in there. As far as I'm aware, there isn't any 3.0 docs in there at all (i.e. all the MediaPlayer, Song, and SoundEffect documentation is absent). This is all due to the fact that it is a 3.0 CTP.

I can see that being true. For instance, beta releases of DirectX would be, for the most part, the same docs as the previous version. However, they'd highlight (in blue or red) that this/that feature is unique to the beta and may or may not be in the final release. So you at least knew, that you'd have to keep an eye on it when the final release was out.

However, I'd like to hope that the changes to the underlying graphics  framework won't change. I know the audio section will along with what sounds like a greatly improved FBX importer.

I could be wrong here - has been known to happen in the past - but maybe a developer would be better prepared to write/test everything using GS 3.0 until it's released. Thus to hopefully reduce any delay in getting your game to and from the peer review and on the market. - assuming your staying on the safe side of the 2.0 code the 3.0 switch could be quicker. (?)

Alternate State Entertainment:

but maybe a developer would be better prepared to write/test everything using GS 3.0 until it's released.

Well, people don't really read the docs either way. And the new features (which are relevant for CG) are nicely discussed and presented on Shawn's Blog  (Rich Presence, Invites, Trial mode)