Windows Phone XNA Educational Content Update - July 2011

At the start of the month a couple new educational items came out for XNA Game Studio developers. The product teams also relased some game-related updated to the Visual Basic samples as well. Head over to https://create.msdn.com/education to check out these new items, as well as the full range of content available to get you started. Individual links are below:

Compiled Content Format (XNB) - This article documents the format of the compiled data files (.xnb) produced by the XNA Game Studio 4.0 Content Pipeline build process, and includes a sample parser written in C++ to illustrate how to work with the format. Windows Phone Localization for Games. Available at https://create.msdn.com/sample/xnb_format .

XNA Localization - This article provides a step-by-step guide and recommended practices to ensure a Windows Phone game project made in XNA Game Studio is localizable, using the Catapult Wars Lab as an example. Available at https://create.msdn.com/education/gamedevelopment/localization_windows_phone_games .

Visual Basic Updates to Mango Samples and Articles  - Several of the popular Windows Phone Mango samples and articles have been updated to include Visual Basic support. Get in and try out the new VB versions today:
• Game State Management - https://create.msdn.com/education/catalog/sample/game_state_management
• Paddle Battle - https://create.msdn.com/education/catalog/sample/paddle_battle
• Migration Guide: Moving to Silverlight/XNA - https://create.msdn.com/education/catalog/article/migration_guide_moving_to_silverlight_xna
• Silverlight XNA Components - https://create.msdn.com/education/catalog/sample/silverlight_xna_game_components

Lots more coming, in the meantime, enjoy!