VBGamer

How this pertains to VB is to see if Microsoft pushes .NET forward as a platform for game development. If you're keeping up with the direction of Microsoft's technology, you know that the next version of windows will be heavily integrated with .NET, so much so that older windows programs based on Component Object Model technology won't run as well as .NET code will. I'm not sure there is a reason for such a limitation other than to make developers use Visual Studio, but that could be an entirely different discussion is not related with VB in game development. With XNA, which really seems to be a fancy name for programming games with Visual Studio and DirectX with a few extra content creation programs provided by microsoft, it will be of importance to see if they push .NET technology for use in game programming or if they simply want unmanaged VC++ to be used for the PC or XBOX. If they do push for .NET to be used on the XBOX, then they are trying to recruit more game programmers. Hobbyists, such as VB game programmers, will be a potential source for game development on the XBOX 2. If the XBOX needs anything, its games, and such a direction will help to provide the programmers to create such games. If Microsoft doesn't push for .NET to be used as the development platform for the XBOX 2, then I'm not sure what the reason for calling DirectX and VisualStudio C++ the name XNA. If they do go in this direction, then it means that their support for VB in directx 7, 8, and .net support in 9 is all simply a way for them to keep a potential monopoly on vb developers with a interest in multimedia programming. If you've been around long enough, you know that Patrice Scribe provided type libraries for Directx 3, 5, and 6. If Microsoft doesn't promote VB as a game programming language, I don't see any reason why they would have taken away Patrice's role in the vb game programming community, which was providing vb support for directx.