Updated XNA Game Studio 3.0 starter kits

  • Article

One of the coolest talks I heard at PDC2008 was XNA Game Studio 3.0.  Watch the session on Channel 9 (along with all the PDC2008 sessions) to learn about XNA Game Studio and the XNA Framework and how they help you to quickly create games using C# that run on Windows, the Xbox 360, and Zune. Frank Savage walked us through creating a 3D game during the session and was very entertaining.

To go along with the recent release of the final version of XNA Game Studio 3.0, a refreshed Creators Club web site was unveiled on the last day of PDC, which includes the ability to submit and peer review games for publication via Xbox LIVE Community Games in the New Xbox Experience.  Now you can make money off your games and share them with the world on Xbox Live Community, or get inspired by trying out games others have made.  You can download a set of updated starter kits that work with Visual Studio 2008 or Visual C# 2008 Express Edition and XNA Game Studio 3.0.

starterkit_mainl_feature1

Each of the starter kits has download links for both XNA Game Studio 2.0 and XNA Game Studio 3.0 versions.  When visiting the download pages, make sure that you download the MSIs that match the version of XNA Game Studio that you plan to use.

The installers for the 3.0 starter kits will check your system and verify that you have a Visual Studio 2008 edition installed and have XNA Game Studio 3.0 installed.  After installing, the starter kits will appear in the My Templates section of Visual Studio new project dialog under the Visual C# node in the XNA Game Studio 3.0 sub-node.