XNA Game Studio Express: Developing Games for Windows and the Xbox 360 is the ultimate resource for hobbyists and students who want to write games for Windows and the Xbox 360 game console. Learn how you can create your own games using the amazing tools of XNA and Game Studio Express, the free game development tools and APIs from Microsoft, based on the incredibly popular Visual Studio IDE. You'll begin with an introduction to the XNA platform and the Game Studio Express development environment. From there, you'll examine many different game genres and will develop your own working games. You'll also cover writing components and libraries and will develop reusable code that can be plugged into your game projects. Wrap things up with a collection of more advanced topics. To get the most out of this unique guide you will need a working knowledge of programming, but readers with a variety of backgrounds will still benefit from the comprehensive coverage found inside. XNA will turn players into developers, doing for game creation what YouTube and myspace have done for music and video.