XNA will turn players into developers, doing for game creation what YouTube and myspace have done for music and video. Windows XP & Xbox 360 Game Programming Using XNA Game Studio Express covers the fundamentals of XNA GSE for current game programmers, independent developers, small studio developers new to the Xbox environment, and programming students learning game programming. It provides a comprehensive guide to the field of games and game consoles, and presents the basics of game design. It concentrates on the game coding process, and introduces the fundamental aspects of game architecture with a focus on Xbox 360 as the code deployment target. The book discusses all aspects of game development through two major game examples: a 2D strategy game and a 3D simulation game. These projects are manageable for an individual developer because XNA GSE uses the C# programming language and managed DirectX. In addition, critical components as .NET and DirectX are introduced and the basics of C# and object oriented programming are reviewed so that new C# programmers will be able to use this book without referring to other sources. Intermediate programmers will be able to use the book's code present as a framework for writing their own games, and advanced programmers can skip the introductory chapters and focus on learning the functionality of XNA GSE, investigate the multi-core architecture of Xbox 360, and extend the game physics module.