When creating a new Xbox 360 project, you need to be able to deploy it to the console when building the code, right?

Is it possible to just write the same code in a Windows project app and of course wrap a nice class for input so that when you decide to deploy it to the 360 you just change one parameter?

99% of the XNA framework is completely cross platform. The biggest issues you'll likely find are:

- No Mouse or MouseState on Xbox 360
- Garbage collections are slower on Xbox 360 so you'll want to tune your code after you do convert it


So you can make a Windows game for now and whenever you want just right click on the project and hit "Create copy of project for Xbox 360" and it'll make a new Xbox 360 project with all the same stuff that's in the Windows one. It's pretty slick. It even shares code files so future changes in one are reflected in the other.

No - the assemblies references are different on each platform so you need a project per platform, per assembly.

However its trivial to add a windows project and then use the VS XAN tools to generate the qeuavalent project for the other platform. Then its 2 clicks to compile and run on the other platform and your code and content is shared between them.

Does it automatically generate an kind of compilation flag (eg #if XBOX), or does this have to be added manually?

If you use the teamplates that come with XNA GS then they will be set up for you. If you make your own empty projects then you will have to do it yourself (though there will also be other things not working if you do this....)