Comments on: .NET on the Xbox

By: My Own Pirate Radio » MS Should Deliver a Handheld Entertainment Device

My Own Pirate Radio » MS Should Deliver a Handheld Entertainment Device — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 05:40:58 +0000

[...] The impending availability of .NET Compact Framework on the Xbox got me thinking: Microsoft really ought to deliver a handheld entertainment device that supports games, music, and video. Between Apple’s iPod and Sony’s PSP, Microsoft is clearly missing the party. Why not join in with a device of their own? [...]

By: Oshoma Momoh

Oshoma Momoh — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:54:06 +0000

Hi Cordell, I have no insider knowledge; just gleaning what I can from blogs. So I can’t answer your question with certainty. That said, based on Mike’s post and Jason Zander’s reference (http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2006/03/13/550984.aspx) I believe it will be some fork of the latest .NET Compact Framework, rather than the full .NET Framework. Plus additional runtime libraries targeted at game development. Why: .NET CF has better CPU portability, lower RAM usage, and a much smaller OS API dependency than the full .NET Framework. All these things make it a much easier fit from an R&D perspective. Lastly, it’s generally easier to grow software up to a new functionality bar than shrink it down to fit constraints it was not originally designed for.

By: Cordell Lawrence

Cordell Lawrence — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:48:38 +0000

Very cool. Will this be a fully featured version of the .NET Framework though? and exactly what version will it be? 1.1, 2.0, 2.x ?

By: Andreas Kraus

Andreas Kraus — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:38:21 +0000

Indeed very interesting, I should go and order my xbox 360 slowly

By: Jason N. Gaylord

Jason N. Gaylord — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 04:36:37 +0000

That would be cool if .NET can run on an XBox 360. Then I can convince the boss to let us have one in the office. We could “control” the servers from a split scrren view and have Halo (etc) on the other.