XNA: Ready for Prime Time?

CoDe magazine has an in-depth article on XNA titled, Microsoft XNA: Ready for Prime Time? It looks at XNA's strengths and deficiencies, and how it is being used and viewed by professional game studios and programmers. Definitely worth a read.

Congrats to DBP Winners

The DBP results are in, and the only surprise for me is that so many of the entries had been made available to play. I had expected there would be more "surprise" entries that had not been shown publicly. I also expected more pro entries so it was good to see the list dominated by small teams of hobbyists, many of whom are regulars in the XNA forums.

For those who haven't played all of the finalists, here are quick links for the seven finalists with public installers. A few of the others finalists have installers available if you go to the #xna channel on EFnet. If I get permission from the authors, I'll post links to those here as well.

Blazing Birds (Xbox)
Chaos (Windows)
Hippocrate's Dilemma (Windows)
Little Gamers (Xbox)
Magic Crystals (Xbox) (Windows )
Proximity HD (Windows)
Shuggy (Xbox) (Windows )

The following are a few other personal favorites that didn't make the finalist cut. There are a lot of other good games in the full list but if you haven't played these, you should check them out.

Battle for the Seas (Windows)
Dream Sower (Xbox) (Windows)
Headbanger (Xbox) (Windows)
In Your Face Football (Xbox)
Vacuum Ball (Xbox)

Congrats to all of the finalists, but also to everyone who managed to complete a game to enter. This has been a lot of fun for me, both as a participant and to see the results!