Microsoft was pretty revolutionary when they launched XNA, which enabled indie developers to create games for both Xbox consoles and PCs using a C# based game library. Then in a somewhat tragic move, Microsoft later killed it off. XNA lived on in the form of MonoGame which is a cross platform open source implementation of XNA 4. If you are interested in learning more about MonoGame I have already done a pretty in-depth tutorial series.
Well, that’s it for the history lesson. Today things have gone somewhat full circle… in Microsoft’s GDC note about [email protected] for GDC 2016, they announced MonoGame is coming to Xbox One.
MonoGame Support
Microsoft’s XNA programming framework isn’t supported natively on Xbox One, but there’s an open source solution for developers called MonoGame. This news is a little overdue, but we’re stoked that MonoGame support will be coming to Xbox One soon, thanks to Tom Spilman and our friends at Sickhead Games.And we’re really excited to be able to welcome MonoGame with a bang, thanks to a partnership with another developer named Tom – Tom Happ. I met Tom at an indie dev event shortly after we confirmed that XNA was not natively supported on Xbox One, and I remember being super bummed that his game was not going to be able to come to Xbox One straight away. Well, today I’m stoked to be able to say that Tom’s game, Axiom Verge, is going to be one of the first games shipping on Xbox One using MonoGame. And hopefully that’s just the first of many!
In addition to the MonoGame announcement, they also announced that [email protected] is coming to Windows 10 as well as developer support for crossplay between Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. I assume more details will come this week as GDC continues.