Microsoft Phases Out XNA and DirectX? 256
mikejuk writes "It is reported that Microsoft has sent an email to DirectX/XNA MVPs which informs them that they are no longer needed because XNA and DirectX are no longer evolving. What does this mean? If you don't need MVPs then presumably you anticipate nothing to support in the future."
Re:Use OpenGL instead (Score:5, Insightful)
OpenGL is the future of hardware accelerated graphics.
And the past, and the present, just to round out the hat trick.
Re:Use OpenGL instead (Score:2, Insightful)
(for example, you want to develop XNA on xbox and there is no other choice)
Well, that is one of the most used gaming platforms on earth... it's not a small reason.
Unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very unlikely that Microsoft will abandon DirectX. It is afterall the reason why most games for the PC are Windows-exclusive. If they OpenGL becomes king, porting to Linux will be a lot easier. Windows will be dumped by a lot of people whose only reason to keep a Windows desktop is gaming.
"if the email is valid and authoritative" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It Means (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Having said that, IBM did not really help. While OS/2 was in many ways a 'better DOS than DOS', as they promised, it fatally lacked support for non-IBM devices in the early days... I remember trying to install on a very-standard config beige box, and sixteen disettes later getting nowhere.
Called up an ex-colleague in IBM, who got me through to a senior dev in the OS/2 team. "Ah, we've never tested it on a non-IBM machine...better buy a PS/2..."
Re:Use OpenGL instead (Score:4, Insightful)
All the growing platforms use OpenGL.
No, they Use OpenGL ES.
Even Windows can use OpenGL
...just not OpenGL ES.
OpenGL is the future of hardware accelerated graphics.
It might be. If they finish OpenGL ES (make it support missing desktop graphics card features), then actually allow people to use it on the desktop.
Unfortunately most of today's graphics cards will never have a working OpenGL ES driver so we're looking at five or ten years before it's worth trying to use OpenGL ES on the desktop, if ever. It's too little, and far too late.
Re:Use OpenGL instead (Score:3, Insightful)
But with OpenGL you get all of the other most used gaming platforms put together. That's much larger than locking yourself to the Xbox.
(Windows runs either, so if you wish to include it, it counts on both sides, thus not changing the outcome).
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its actually quite simple, Steve Ballmer is burning the company to the ground because he has it in his big fat head that he has a "brand" like Prada and Nike when in reality he has a replaceable good, like Coke or Pepsi.
You see Steve Ballmer thinks if you click your heels three times and say "There is no place like Cupertino" why you can just turn the company into Apple, of course those of us in the trenches know there ain't enough dope in the world to make it so, but old fathead doesn't see any value in anything that isn't just aping Apple, hence why he shit on the desktop, he's shitting on the OEMs, and now he's shitting all over DirectX which frankly is the only thing that keeps many on windows.
My only question is will Gates get tired of seeing everything he spent so many years building being burnt to the ground and step in, or will he kick back with his big piles o' cash and just watch the whole thing burn?
Re:Use OpenGL instead (Score:5, Insightful)
> I miss the days where Slashdot was populated by actual developers.
We're still here. It is just that the signal (developers) is probably buried under the noise (fanboys) half (most?) of the time.
It is harder to stick to the facts then to go all emo over speculation which sadly /. is becoming more and more.
Re:Use OpenGL instead (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit, doesn't work anywhere else, but XBOX, what flexibility are you talking about?
It also works on WinPhone (even WP8) and Widnows XP onwards, with the ability to share 95%+ of the code between them. So it covers the two largest segments of the videogame market, platform-wise.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even Coke or Pepsi. Microsoft is and has always been an office supply company. They're rich because they worked out how to sell an expensive box of paperclips to every business in the world. But y'know, turning pens and paperclips into a consumer shiny toy company? A bit unlikely to happen.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
turning pens and paperclips into a consumer shiny toy company?
Exchange Server, SQL Server, MSVC and all it's attendant addons are *not* paper clips.