Microsoft Phases Out DirectX and XNA?

[DKT27]

It is reported that Microsoft has sent an email to DirectX/XNA MVPs which informs them that they are no longer needed because XNA and DirectX are no longer evolving. What does this mean? If you don't need MVPs then presumably you anticipate nothing to support in the future.



According to Promit Roy, a technical lead at Action Equals Reaction Labs and ex-Microsofty (on his personal blog), the email says:

"The XNA/DirectX expertise was created to recognize community leaders who focused on XNA Game Studio and/or DirectX development. Presently the XNA Game Studio is not in active development and DirectX is no longer evolving as a technology. Given the status within each technology, further value and engagement cannot be offered to the MVP community. As a result, effective April 1, 2014 XNA/DirectX will be fully retired from the MVP Award Program."

To most programmers the fact that XNA Game Studio is not evolving is not a great shock. The fact that XNA has been left out of WP8 and other development environments was the writing on the wall.As far as desktop development under Windows goes XNA has never really been a success but as a way to create XBox games it is essentially the feeder for Xbox Live Indie games. Perhaps Microsoft has an replacement for XNA Game Studio or perhaps this marks the end of XBox Live Indie games.

The real shock is the statement that DirectX is no longer being developed. DirectX includes Direct2D/3D which is Microsoft's star graphics technology. It even dumped Silverlight on WP8 in favour of DirectX and it is the key display technology on Windows 8.

One source of confusion is that, while the name DirectX still means the complete bundle of technologies to most programmers, it could also be interpreted as applying only to the many DirectX non-graphics related technologies. These include DirectSound and DirectShow, both of which have been more or less ignored by Microsoft, if not by programmers, for some years. Although the status of some of these technologies has already been made clear, for example DirectSound is being replaced by XAudio2 and DirectMusic is already deprecated, it isn't easy to find out what Microsoft intends overall, or in any particular case.

It might be that Direct2D/3D is actually the star, and DirectX and its name, which harks back to the days of ActiveX technology, is for the scrap heap. Perhaps it means that Direct2D/3D is now such an integral part of Windows that it is no longer to be regarded as a separate technology.

However, if the email is valid and authoritative it seems that Microsoft no longer needs XNA or DirectX MVPs and this means that it doesn't think that there will be developer communities which need such support.

It is important that Microsoft explains what the future of XNA and the many DirectX technologies are. Programmers have been having to guess what frameworks to base their future on for too long.The supposed turmoil in Microsoft should not spill over into its developer community.

We need clarity.

:view: View: Original Article

[Ganxxta]

Either I didn't understand this or Microsoft is destroying itself here (again), no DX?

I mean if they discontinue DX, then THE point for using windows (besides office), gaming, is obsolete...

[RadioActive]

I agree with Ganxxta, this doesn't make any sense.

The entire existence of Windows is supported mainly by gaming and office use. If gaming gets taken out of the equation then Windows WILL die.

[Pedrito]

Well, they already removed the start menu so... :duh:

[a2ms]

Microsoft: False alarm. We aren't backing away from DirectX

False alarm: Microsoft isn't backing away from DirectX, despite an
email message the company sent to some of its Most Valuable
Professionals to the contrary earlier this week.

On January 30, Microsoft apparently sent an email message to its XNA and DirectX MVPs notifying them that as of April 1, 2014 "XNA/DirectX will be fully retired from the MVP Award Program." An excerpt from this email was posted on the "Promit Ventspace" blog.

The author of the blog is Promit
Roy, Chief Technology Officer at Action = Reaction Labs, LLC. (Roy
previously worked at both NVIDIA and Microsoft. He also is the lead
developer on SlimDX, an open source library for DirectX support in
.NET.)

Here's the excerpt:

"The XNA/DirectX expertise was created to recognize community
leaders who focused on XNA Game Studio and/or DirectX development.
Presently the XNA Game Studio is not in active development and DirectX
is no longer evolving as a technology. Given the status within each
technology, further value and engagement cannot be offered to the MVP
community. As a result, effective April 1, 2014 XNA/DirectX will be
fully retired from the MVP Award Program."

Given Microsoft's decision to back away from XNA by not encouraging its use for future Windows Phone apps, and not allowing it to be used at all in developing Windows Store/Metro Style apps and games, I wasn't too surprised to see XNA called out as a Microsoft technology on its way out.

But DirectX? Microsoft's set of gaming/graphics programming interfaces that have been baked into Windows and Windows Phone?

I asked Microsoft about the MVP mail. A spokesperson sent the following statement:

"I can confirm that the original communication sent to MVPs
yesterday was inaccurate. Microsoft has issued a follow-up communication
to the DirectX/XNA MVPs reaffirming that DirectX is very much an
important and evolving technology for Microsoft."

The spokesperson added that "Microsoft is actively investing in
DirectX as the unified graphics foundation for all of our platforms,
including Windows, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone. DirectX is evolving and
will continue to evolve. We have absolutely no intention of stopping
innovation with DirectX."

So what happened here? How could that MVP email been so, so wrong
about Microsoft's future DirectX commitments? The spokesperson said "it
was a mistake, pure and simple."

"Microsoft has people across multiple divisions working on DirectX
technologies. We are actively innovating and evolving DirectX and it
will continue to be the world’s leading low-level high performance
interface for gaming and graphics across Microsoft platforms," the
spokesperson added.

In spite of his (correct)hunch that the note to the MVPs was wrong/badly worded, Roy still was quite down on how Microsoft has been handling and communicating about DirectX.

Update: (Thanks @Shmuelie) Roy posted an update with some of the revised wording Microsoft sent to MVPs about DirectX
on his blog on January 31. He noted his frustrations around Microsoft's
communication policies with its developers still remains.

"It shouldn’t take a leaked email to force a straight answer," Roy concluded. We journalists and bloggers agree!

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-false-alarm-we-arent-backing-away-from-directx-7000010647/

[DKT27]

An mistake email so clear and big? I don't think so, M$ is just trying to hide their future plans, of being even more shittier than ever.

[Shadowx]

So, which one is false :) if they remove it, that's :doh:

[dcs18]

This knee-jerk news arrives just when Users of Windows 7 thought they had reasons for a celebration.

[SPECTRUM]

I think M$ creating other API for games in reeplace of Direct X, because Direct X is more or less properly usable with the current versions of Wine, that means Linux gains terrain over Windows.