"Build a XNA game in 60 minutes" - Q/A list

[#1]

Q:Why was C# decided as the de facto language and not vb?

A:

Most likely because C# and C++ (which the XBOX library is written in) are fairly close. Purely a guess as we have never found out. C# is an easy language to learn though if you are already familiar with VB, visit www.csharpcourse.com and read Rob Miles book. 

Q:Is there any reduction in graphics quality that results from the upscaling?

A:

 The hardware scaller is very efficient, I've not seen significant degredation in any of the projects I've been working on

Q:How astroid model was built?

A:

The Asteroid was built in Blender as a simple model, as was the Bullet. The ship was a sample from the Creators site

Q:I still can't understand why VB.Net is excluded from XNA? Doesn't this go against the login of .Net? Choose your best language and develope apps?

A:

I don't know the specific reason why VB hasn't been enabled for XNA, it has been asked for a long time. But I think it comes down to time, what do the XNA team focus their efforts on

Q:How can you handle slide gesture?

A:

This is handled for you in the Gesture library and is easy to use.  See the gesture samples on the creators club - http://creators.xna.com/en-US/sample/gestures

Q:Is there a way to customize the presentation of the Guide like can be done in Silverlight?

A:

As far as I am aware the guide isn't available on the phone except to XBOX LIVE publishers, however you can access the avatar and gamercard through the XNA framework

Q:Have you tried porting XNA code of XBL titles yet? Found any common snags?

A:

I haven't tried it but from reports from others who have through the Dream Build Play competition winners, it wasn't a difficult task.  Just need to hook in to the XBOX live API and meet a few extra requirements

Q:I am myself developing few games for the WP7 but I start first in 2D!

A:

2D is the best choice for starting out in game development. My Blog already has a 2D tutorial series to help you out. There is also a wealth of content on the creators site and in the XNA help. The help has a lot there

Q:What I find difficult (and I am already a good c# developer) is the lack of resources so yes surely I will check your samples

A:

There are many many samples and tutorials out there for XNA. A lot are from the earlier days, so need to be upgraded in content ,but the principles are still the same. With XNA GS evolving, it just makes things easier. In XNA 1 for example I would have needed three times the amount of code I added to do this game :-)

Q:Glad to see this because the current Beta don't work very well with Expression 4!

A:

I've actually built several apps using Blend 4 preview and the Beta and it worked quite well.  From what I have heard since Blend has been inproved even further since the RTM, so looking forward to updating my apps

Q:Can you confirm that the Beta 2 is on developer.windowsphone.com site? seems to be the same version there??

A:

The RTM is now available from developer.windowsphone.com which is the main site for windows phone development.  The beta has now been removed from the downloads. Panorama and Pivot controls were released in the RTM and also the Bing API for windows phone.