Anith Gopal

As I mentioned in a previous blog post , the Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update was released a few days ago.  Since then, I’ve heard from a few people who have reported installation issues that I wanted to describe in a bit more detail in case others run into them in the future. Issue 1 – Windows Phone Developer Resources patch silently exits when it is done installing The Windows Phone Developer Resources patch that is a part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update only displays a small dialog with a progress bar during the installation process.

As announced earlier today in this post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog and in this news item on the App Hub site , the Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update is now available for download.

Until 11:59 PM PST on February 7th, 2011, developers creating games for Xbox LIVE Indie Games can continue to submit their games made in XNA Game Studio 3.1 to peer review on App Hub . Beginning at 12:00 AM PST on February 8th, 2011 , only games made in XNA Game Studio 4.0 will be accepted to peer review; any games submitted that are made in XNA Game Studio 3.1 or any earlier version will not be accepted by the system. When the restriction goes into effect, games already in the peer review process will not be affected.

There was some information announced today at GDC 2010 about the upcoming XNA Game Studio 4.0 release and support it will provide for developing games for Windows Phone 7 Series , Xbox 360 and Windows.  I encourage you to check out some of the links below to start learning about this new version of XNA Game Studio: Introductory post on Michael Klucher’s blog Highlights of new XNA Game Studio 4.0 features on Shawn Hargreaves’ blog Introductory post on the Microsoft blog News item on the XNA Creators Club Online site XNA Game Studio 4.0 fact sheet XNA Game Studio 4.0 FAQ Press information on the XNA Creators Club Online site