Well,
I wrote a long reply to the above, but ended up way off topic ('just an implementation detail' indeed - don't get me started!).
But all in all, there's basically one thing I don't quite get:
What exactly does C#/XNA have over, say, C++/OpenGL (or even C++/D3D or C#/D3D)?
The only thing I can really think of is the ability to release 'open source demos' for the X360 - what else is there?
Both are strongly typed OO languages combined with low level 3D APIs.
Both will require you to get your head around shaders, matrices, quaternions, etc etc.
I guess if you're a huge fan of C# that might be enough.
Some people obviously like Visual Studio quite a bit too(!) - but VS isn't an XNA only IDE: you could also use it to write a C++/GL game.
The more I think about it the odder it seems...
I wrote a long reply to the above, but ended up way off topic ('just an implementation detail' indeed - don't get me started!).
But all in all, there's basically one thing I don't quite get:
What exactly does C#/XNA have over, say, C++/OpenGL (or even C++/D3D or C#/D3D)?
The only thing I can really think of is the ability to release 'open source demos' for the X360 - what else is there?
Both are strongly typed OO languages combined with low level 3D APIs.
Both will require you to get your head around shaders, matrices, quaternions, etc etc.
I guess if you're a huge fan of C# that might be enough.
Some people obviously like Visual Studio quite a bit too(!) - but VS isn't an XNA only IDE: you could also use it to write a C++/GL game.
The more I think about it the odder it seems...