This thread is for discussions/questions related to the Feb 20th announcement of Zune support in XNA Game Studio 3.0.  As always, make sure you read the Zune game development FAQ first, otherwise the moderators are liable to smite thy post with furious anger.

Sorry about the thread-lock people -- fixed up now!

Will wireless sync be supported for the XNA PC device connection?

This is great news! But ever since I got a quite capable Windows Mobile phone (based on the same ARM chip as Zune) I've been thinking about how cool it would be if XNA supported Windows Mobile. I hope this news about XNA targeting Zune will eventually make XNA available on Windows Mobile as well!

Stuart P. Bentley:

Will wireless sync be supported for the XNA PC device connection?

Deploying games to your Zune from XNA Game Studio 3.0 will only be possible over USB.

I don't know that much about the Zune hardware; does it even have a 3D accelerator chip?

Does this mean a split in the XNA Framework API?

ShawMishrak:

I don't know that much about the Zune hardware; does it even have a 3D accelerator chip?

Does this mean a split in the XNA Framework API?

The graphics API on Zune will support 2D through SpriteBatch only, so it is correct to say that not the entire XNA Framework is available on Zune. On the other hand, Zune has some unique features that aren't available on other platforms.

I have to admit that I'm not super familiar with the zune hardware ... any chance someone could enumerate some of these features? :-)

when will we get an API list of supported features?

how much control do we have over the wireless hardware?

can we talk to a webserver through the wireless connection?

Zune hardware isn't particularly interesting in the sense that Xbox is: it doesn't have a GPU, but the CPU is reasonably fast at least for a handheld device. You get the SpriteBatch API for graphics (plus full rendertarget support, but no 3D stuff), the same networking API we have today on Xbox and Windows, same input API (we map the Zune buttons to various properties of the GamepadState), same Game class and application model, plus some new APIs for enumerating media, starting and stopping playlists, and other cool media player stuff like that.

jdavid.net:

can we talk to a webserver through the wireless connection?

Networking is only from Zune to Zune: there is no connection to other devices. It uses our existing networking API.

Shawn Hargreaves:

Zune hardware isn't particularly interesting in the sense that Xbox is: it doesn't have a GPU, but the CPU is reasonably fast at least for a handheld device. You get the SpriteBatch API for graphics (plus full rendertarget support, but no 3D stuff), the same networking API we have today on Xbox and Windows, same input API (we map the Zune buttons to various properties of the GamepadState), same Game class and application model, plus some new APIs for enumerating media, starting and stopping playlists, and other cool media player stuff like that.

I find it particularly interesting. 2D just came back in vogue now! I am so incredibly excited about this new feature.


So reading in the FAQ I see that all version of the Zune are curently being supported, does that just mean the older style Zune's without the squircle just lose some input capabilities?

George Clingerman:

I find it particularly interesting. 2D just came back in vogue now! I am so incredibly excited about this new feature.

Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest Zune as a platform wasn't interesting, just that there isn't so much to say about the hardware specs. With Xbox you can talk forever about cool and obscure features in the GPU, but with Zune it's really the outward form factor of the device that makes it interesting. From an internal hardware point of view, it's really just "hey, it has a CPU, some RAM, that's about it" :-)

George Clingerman:

So reading in the FAQ I see that all version of the Zune are curently being supported, does that just mean the older style Zune's without the squircle just lose some input capabilities?

Yep. The original Zune basically maps to a directional pad plus a couple of buttons, while the new ones have a proper analog input.

I suspect some games will come up with cool gameplay uses for the squircle thingie, and might then be tough to play on an original Zune, while others will just use directional clicks so they don't care which version they are on, and some might even want to tune their input system differently depending on what input capabilities are available.