Windows Dev Center: Updates to the game portal

Greetings. I’m John Osborne; I work on content for the Windows Dev Center. Today I’m happy to announce a new series of posts here on the Microsoft Press blog. Each time guidance in the Windows Dev Center is updated or added, we’ll blog about it here so that you know what’s new. And, going forward, you can use the “Windows Dev Center” tag to see only these posts and find our updates more easily.

In our first post in this series, we’d like to alert you to significant updates we’ve made to the game portal in the Windows Dev Center. You can get tips on how to port a game from another platform or program a new game for Windows 8 using our free tools. Then, distribute the game through the Windows Store and start making money. (In case you’re unfamiliar with it, the Windows Dev Center can help you through the whole process of making games or apps, from start to finish, including UX design, app development, and selling.)

Doc updates

Our game portal has a new look and lots of new information that we showcased in time for GDC 2013 in March. If you haven’t seen the docs recently, you’ll be happy to find new coverage in these areas:

Porting   Look for information on how to port to the Windows Store platform from other platforms:

  • Port from DirectX 9 to the Windows Store : for developers who are familiar with game programming for PC, learn how to useDirect3D 11.1, the unified shader models, Windows Store APIs, XAudio2, touch input, C++/CX and more.
  • Port from OpenGL ES 2.0 to Direct3D 11.1 : for Android and iOS game developers, we help you plan your port strategy and the API changes required to move your graphics processing to Direct3D.

DirectX   If you’re new to DirectX, the high-performance technology at the core of most Windows Store games, we’ve got new information to get you started:

Improved APIs   We cover newly added APIs for Windows 8 that support games:

By the way, you might have noticed “build dates” on the pages we linked to above. As you probably guessed, a build date does indeed indicate the date on which the page was last updated.

Have fun making games, and watch this space for more updates as the Windows Dev Center’s guidance evolves.