Perhaps it's an opportunity though. I'm growing increasingly fond of SlimDX, and would enjoy no longer having to constantly second guess every method and algorithm to avoid 360 performance pitfalls. If I punt XNA entirely, I rid myself of that baggage, plus make distribution much easier (unless they start packing the XNA runtimes in windows update, nobody will every download them). This also has the distinct benefit of dodging the content pipeline, which while an interesting concept, always felt too "magic" to me, and too tied into the IDE and project files. Being able to use a "plain" project is appealing.
Also, from what I've been hearing, XBLIG is a bit of a black hole, unless you have a total breakaway hit that strikes just the right chords like avatar drop. Let's face it, a 4D game is pretty esoteric and difficult to even explain, much less play (most likely, we'l just have to see when it's done). I don't even own my own 360, and have no particular desire to own one, much less give my payment credentials to a service that can't be cancelled without jumping through frustrating support call hoops. It's a shame to lose the huge install base of 360 and being able to just say "it's on XBLIG, check it out.", but I think the pros outweight the cons. Plus, making a SlimDX framework for the game will be something that's reusable later for other projects that I want to do after this.
Which brings me around to the new years resolution part. I want to put this thing to bed within 2010, so that I can move on to other, less eccentric, projects. A playable concept demo should be enough to gauge interest, and could be expanded on from there if it ends up being worthwhile. Otherwise, at least I can say I did it, and move on without feeling like a complete quitter :/
Almost forgot. Speaking of quitting, I've shelved the emulator project. Not due to any technical hurdles or anything, there was just no reason to continue. It was a wrapper of bsnes, a fantastic and extremely accurate SNES emulator. My goal was to add shader support and such, but recent developments on the emulator itself have rendered that goal redundant. I don't consider it a waste in the least though. I learned a lot about SlimDX that will serve me well, and a good change of pace is always nice. I just need to focus completely on the 4D project in the coming months and see if I can at least post some progress before my GDNet+ expires.
