Publishing a game -- any way to target both WP7 and Win8 Store?
- by Rei Miyasaka
I'm at a dilemma which seems should soon become an important issue for a lot of developers.
If I build a game in XNA, I won't be able to publish it on the Windows 8 Store, as it would be a classic application -- and classic applications can't be sold on the store.
If I build a game in Metro DirectX, I would be able to sell it on the Store, but porting it to Windows Phone would involve porting it to Reach XNA, which in fact would likely involve more effort even than porting to OS X or Android -- both of which support C++. Of all the WinRT API that is supported on C++/JS/.NET, DirectX can only be programmed from C++. It's also unlikely that Microsoft will update Windows 7 or Vista to support the new DirectX features, although that would make the Metro DirectX the first new version of DirectX to stop supporting the immediate predecessor OS.
If I build a game in Pre-Win8 DirectX 9/10/11, I won't be able to sell it on the Windows Store or Windows Phone, but I could sell it on something like Steam. It would also involve the most amount of manual plumbing. In fact, DirectWrite, despite being part of DirectX 11, doesn't talk to Direct3D.
I'm getting really tired of all these restrictions -- artificial and otherwise -- and I'm coming to a point where I'm considering switching to a platform with a less fragmented API, like Android or Mac/iOS.
As far as bringing a game into market goes, excluding the actual market share of any platforms that I might consider, what other factors would help me in making a decision?
Just a few years ago this question was a lot easier to answer: if you were primarily concerned with Windows platforms, all you had to answer was whether you wanted DirectX, XNA, or something like SlimDX. If you made the wrong decision, no biggie -- all you really would have lost is XBox and the fairly small Windows Phone market.
