the unity engine runs on mac, windows, iphone, and wii. who cares where the dev kit runs on? an xbox game surely isn't developed on an xbox either, but on a pc.

XNA is quite good if you want to use modern languages with OO Programming like c#...

Its fast enough for indie (and some commercial) games..
and the best: you can usw it within a great IDE - Visual studio.

A7 is also cool, but the SED is just out of date...
No code completition... A7 would be fantastic with a c# wrapper..
it would be the first thing i buy...

So if someone went to a games company and said, my experience is with the GamesStudio A7 game engine, and I also have a good working knowledge of C++, would they be taken seriously ?

Drac.

They won't be interested in which game engine you used. They will be interested in your C++ knowledge.

yeah .. but thats not the discussion here I think

brozar, have you ver tried XNA ? Because I wasn't really interested in it but since I knew c# from A6 I try it. The learning curve is really easy and interesting. You can have a working knowledge without getting your hand really dirty. You understand the game workflow and there is so much example, whenever you are lost you can find some explanation.

The main advantage of XNA over direct x is the inizialitation
It seems to be a silly stuff but believe me ,Direct x was a nightmare from this point of view
XNA use C# which is definetly simpler than C++
Beside XNA supplies a library of the most common functions

Having said that do not assume that XNA is a game engine
XNA is a framework or, if you prefer, a sort of " organizer " of your game \ graphic oriented code
Very important, do not undermine it

However you must code by yourself all the essential game engine features
An hard task believe me

In my opinion it can be of use to develop specific multi media applications \ simulations thanks to its flexibility

As far as games are concerned I would stick to a commercial game engine

If you are still interested I would suggest to buy the book
" XNA 2.0 Game programming Recipes " by Riemer Grootjans

If you put all the recipes togheter (abt 700 pages) you get a very basic game engine

Alberto..

which would you prefer?
A7?

As a game engine, you mean ?

I keep using A7 because it is stable, well documented and reasonably updated
These are the most important features in my opinion

However after using the XNA " intelisense " system I must confess that I am a litlle be disappointed about 3dgs

intellisense rocks, I agree it's one area that 3dgs could do with some help. Maybe it's possible to do something with eclipse or a possible plugin for V.S?

I'd write one but I'm not sure the returns would be worth the effort...