Microsoft's XNA Comes To Windows Phones

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The Game Developers Conference (GDC) just started this week in San Francisco, and right on time, Microsoft has revealed more information on XNA Game Studio 4.0. This new version of the freeware game development platform will have new support for Microsoft’s critically acclaimed (as much acclaim an unreleased mobile OS can get) Windows Phone 7 OS.

During their big unveiling of the Windows Phone 7 OS at the Mobile World Congress in Spain last month, one thing they showed off was the ability to play the same game on the Xbox 360, Windows PC and Windows Phone 7. XNA Game Studio 4.0 has been given the ability to develop games in the XNA platform for the Windows Phone 7 OS.

In addition to games, Windows Phone 7 XNA games are given access to the full Xbox Live API. So they can pull Xbox Live gamertags and avatars. XNA games played on Windows Phone 7 can even unlock Xbox Live achievements and add to the user’s gamerscore.

XNA is Microsoft’s set of freeware tools for developing games on both the Xbox 360 and PC. It was aimed at amateur and independent developers, orginially. However, with the release of XNA Game Studio 3.1 they added more features for “studio developers” (as they call them) and XNA Game Studio 4.0 has a few more features for these big-time devs.

So, even though we’re pretty far off from seeing the release of Windows Phone 7 Series phones, game developers can begin developing software for the mobile OS, thanks to the upcoming release of the XNA Game Studio 4.0.