XNA is coming to Visual Basic!
Tonight at DevConnections, Senior Director Dave Mendlen announced that XNA support will be coming to Visual Basic. This is part of Microsoft’s co-evolution strategy, whereby we are providing equal access to Microsoft technologies for both C# and Visual Basic developers. XNA has been a top Visual Basic customer request for the past several years, so we are excited to bring this support to the product.
Stay tuned for the next couple of months when we will provide additional details on these plans.
[UPDATE] May 24: Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 ("Mango") Beta released today, including Visual Basic support for XNA and Windows Phone! Download the bits and then see the VB XNA documentation and VB WP7 code samples and starter kits to get started!
Comments
Anonymous
March 27, 2011
OMG! Finally! i wanted so badly to create XNA applications but i hated that i had to learn and use C# after 10+years working with VB! Thank you Microsoft thank you SO MUCH for listing to your customers! Question does this mean a new XNA version will be available for the VS 2008, or VS 2010? or we have to wait 2-3 years for the next visual studio and the .net 5? :( i hope we can have this for .NET 4 ASAP!!!!!Anonymous
March 27, 2011
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March 27, 2011
Great news, I have been writing an engine Levler 3Dsince XNA 2.0 with VB.NET, I will soon Launch a site with full Source code for vb.net community to enjoy, Learnt alot converting c# to vb.net . e.t.c... Seek and you will find a solution... but GREAT NEWS to VB CODERS AT LAST ..Anonymous
March 28, 2011
there was some site with some basic tutorials but the idea of not having true native support was so discouraging of working with XNA. XNA was made to make game development EASY and who had the "great idea" that c# was easier than VB.NET is a mystery yet to be answered! >:( i am waiting for reply in my 1st post question on what .net will be available, and other details! :DAnonymous
March 28, 2011
On one hand, I'm very excited about this news. As a die hard VB programmer, I've felt like the red-headed stepchild of DX/XNA development for years and years. Now Microsoft has finally decided to include VB in all their game development goodness. On the other hand, I'm saddened by this news. I feel like it's too little, too late. I finally gave in to Microsoft's bias toward C# and started using it exclusively for all new projects. Now I'm not so sure I want to go back to VB. I'm disappointed that Microsoft didn't do this a lot sooner. On the third hand, I feel a bit indifferent about this news. Precisely because of Microsoft's so-called 'co-evolution' strategy, it's now ridiculously easy to port code back and forth between VB and C#. So to sum it all up in one word: meh.Anonymous
March 28, 2011
Good thing I have just began VB classes.Anonymous
March 28, 2011
With all this co evolution, does this mean VB will finaly get UnSafe code blocks. It realy peevs me that I have to get someone else to write some code in C# just because you do not allow use to use Unsafe code blocks in VB. I know the languages are not exacly the same but unlike say Xml Literals that are not in C# lang, no unsafe code blocks = brick wall because the only way around it, is to use C#. PaulAnonymous
March 29, 2011
Great news. The co-evolution strategy is going to keep me using VB which is what I have and want to be using. I like the equal access to both languages, it really has made the choice of syntax a preference choice.Anonymous
March 29, 2011
It took too long. HTML5 game development looks more promising now.Anonymous
March 29, 2011
OH RIGHT ON! Now, watch what this hungry, creative, grass-roots community can do with the boundless opportunities of the XBox Platform!!Anonymous
March 29, 2011
haha @Don you are kidding right? wish you good luck then. If you have such game in thought to use html5 XNA isn't your needed platform. Sounds more like trolling to me.Anonymous
March 29, 2011
Great to see all this excitement & interest! Regarding the questions about timeframe & ship vehicle, we will disclose this information in the next couple of month. Looking forward to seeing the cool apps you all create with this. :-)Anonymous
March 29, 2011
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March 30, 2011
Hi @Rob, no trolling here, although the ice is off my favorite fishing spot now so trolling will begin soon on the water. Don't know if you've had a chance to see some of the cool stuff coming from http://thinkpixellab.com/. These guys are former MS folks and are doing a whole lot of cool. MS is also sanctioning these types of development to promote IE9 - the pirates love daisies is another one to check out. Numerous javascript game frameworks are being refined this year so greater game development will ensue in the browser. I'm not against XNA by any means and am more likely now than before to give it a try to write something now that VB is finally supported, but it took almost five years for MS to support the VB developers on this. Some things have changed. My 2 cents. See you on the water.Anonymous
April 03, 2011
Good to see such activity! Instead of all,I'm not a professional VB programmer but I hate C Family Languages .and when I wanted to test how does XNA platform work,I saw that I need to be able to work with C# and my secondary problem will also be " exactly how to learn it" when no teacher and books are available in my area. You know,in my area,which is better not to say, most professional programs can work with C++ and some of them can work with VB and Foxpro and worse than all,I know nobody to ask for help. I live in ...... and I'm .............. years old. Regards S.A.TAnonymous
April 05, 2011
Great !! this is one of the things i am waiting for especially as for Windows Phone development to be taken serious as a VB developer XNA is a mustAnonymous
April 05, 2011
This is awesome! I can't wait to start programming XNA!! What's XNA?Anonymous
April 06, 2011
The great part about this is that I had been a VB programmer for years and finally switched to C# because of XNA and WP7 Silverlight...now you could use VB for both!Anonymous
April 08, 2011
It's about dang time. C# and VB parity were promised before .NET 1.0 was even out of Beta.Anonymous
April 12, 2011
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April 14, 2011
gud news for me to learn it now.....Anonymous
April 19, 2011
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April 21, 2011
Hi All, We will ship VB XNA support in the Windows Phone Developer Tools "Mango" Beta release, due out next month. Can't wait to see all the awesome VB XNA and Windows Phone 7 applications you build with it! Lisa FeigenbaumAnonymous
April 22, 2011
Too little too late IMO. Now that I have invested in 200k+ lines of C# code.Anonymous
May 02, 2011
Super Excited about XNA to VB.net . iam a vb.net programmer for 5 years now and looking forward for XNA Game developement .I hope Enough tutorials avaialble online for XNA.:-)Anonymous
May 03, 2011
Excellent news Lisa, looking forward to checking out VB XNA :)Anonymous
May 09, 2011
Any further news on a realease ? Its been over a month and a half now since you posted this and i'm getting impatient lol.Anonymous
May 18, 2011
I'm impatient too ^^!! Waiting for news!Anonymous
May 24, 2011
These bits are now live with today's Mango Beta release! For more information on XNA in Visual Basic, please download the following documentation: create.msdn.com/.../VBSupportForXNAAnonymous
May 24, 2011
Here is the download link for Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 ("Mango") Beta: create.msdn.com/.../WPDT_7.1_BetaAnonymous
June 13, 2011
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June 26, 2011
I have not seen an answer for if XNA game studio in VS2010 or 2008. I have both. Does this include development in Windows Forms apps or just WP7?Anonymous
June 27, 2011
@JostaZA - You can use Windows Phone Developer Tools "Mango" Beta as a standalone install, or with VS 2010. You can develop apps for the XBOX, PC or Phone.Anonymous
November 26, 2011
[need help] It was exiting to know that xna is finaly available for vb. I immediatly installed referesh version and started a project but it seems that my intellisense does not work and object browser always sys "updating..." between "UIAutomationClientsideProviders" and "XamlGeneratedNamespace". Please help me make it work.Anonymous
November 29, 2011
That sounds strange that you experiencing this problem. Do you have a sample project which this is occuring on that you could send. Are you targeting the phone/xbox or windows for your XNA project. As you are the first to be reporting this issue I would possibly suggest making sure that VS2010 SP1 is correctly installed and then installing the WP7 RTW tools. Also which version of VS are you using Express/Professional/Ultimate just so I can try to set up and environment here to attempt to repro. Loging a connect bug is the best way to ensure that a product team see's your issue and you will get a response. http://connect.microsoft.com/Anonymous
March 19, 2012
Thank You Sooo much i am good with basic but not with c# this will help me alot!!! thanks...Anonymous
May 23, 2012
lets all keep in perspective, C# is based on a syntax that was developed in the 70's (the C language). Many things have changed in the programming world, a syntax like VB is the syntax of the future and will make your development more productive, easier to read and with less bugs. C# can't even support xml literals, doesn't have a background compiler and doesn't have anywhere near the full range of linq to sql or entities to sql keywords written into the language (so everything needs to be called using extension methods). But it seems most people thing C# is cooler because it has a cryptic syntax, and the users go to C# because they feel smarter/cooler - and the verbosity argument fails, because you spend most of your time staring at the code and you don't get to write code like you write an essay. so the verbosity doesn't really hurt you, especially if you make full use of the TAB button on the keyboard, you start to code something and pressing TAB will predict what your trying to write and fill it all in, then you can TAB through the areas you need & want to fill in. there goes the verbosity argument.