Microsoft finally released Silverlight 5.  As I mentioned in an earlier post the future of Silverlight seems to be in question.  This is a shame, as I a really have a project in mind that Silverlight would have been a perfect fit for.

I know there is a big drive to eliminate Flash and Silverlight and move the world to HTML 5, but there are two problems with that.

First off, the developer experiences simply do not compare.  I would much rather develop in C# than HTML5/Javascript, moving “back” to HTML feels like a giant jump backwards.

More importantly, HTML5 isn’t even close to either Flash or Silverlight in performance or even features.  I am sure it will be eventually, especially given all the resources being thrown behind it, but that isn’t the case today.  So I am still trying to decide if I go ahead with my Silverlight project or not… decisions decisions.

These are the new parts that will be of most interest to game developers:

Graphics

• XNA 3D API
• Improved Graphics Stack
• XNA 3D built-in effects
• XNA 3D Project Templates with full XNA Content Pipeline
• 3D surface composition settings
• 3D multi-sample anti-aliasing

Media

• Low-Latency Sound using XNA SoundEffect and SoundEffectInstance
• Hardware decoding of unprotected H.264 media
• Variable Speed Playback and Trick-play (new since beta)
• Remote Control and Media Command (Keys) Support

For those of you making tools, there are a number of key ( and handy ) data binding changes as well.  You can get the full list of updates here.  You can download Silverlight 5 tools here.

Now I have to wonder… is this going to be the final Silverlight release ever?  I for one, hope not.

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