Earlier this month, Microsoft held a Zune event, making several announcements including the release of the company’s XNA mobile gaming platform for the device. Although the system isn’t finished, it’s still possible to force some games onto the Zune, giving DIY nerds just one more reason to stay up late… again.

Like all nerds, we like to flip-off “the Man” by doing stuff with our electronics that we’re supposed to avoid, so even though these directions are meant for developers, it’s still simple (and free) enough for most tech-savvy web-surfers.

You’ll need to download Microsoft Visual C# Express 2008. If the program isn’t the 2008 edition, it won’t work.

Next, grab the Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP. Please understand this isn’t the official release of the program since it is still in pre-beta. As a result, you may encounter problems with the rest of this process.

Finally, follow these detailed directions on how to use Visual C# Express and the XNA Studio to put real, playable games on the Zune. Though there’s a small possibility it won’t even work, if it does you’ll be ahead of the game for the short while before Microsoft officially pushes the service (with games!) out the door.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 8:38 pm under Hacking, Microsoft, Tutorials.

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