Everyone has their own ideas about why the Zune restarts after you exit user-created games.* Some think that it is to prevent us from accessing certain parts of the Zune device that would allow it to become hackable. Some people even think that the developers themselves program the games to restart. Well Michael Klucher from the XNA Game Studios team was kind enough to bring us the answer.
According to Klucher, when you play a game on your Zune that was created using XNA Game Studio, there are some features on your Zune that are "turned off." These features include the ability to play DRM protected music and the ability to share non-game releated content. The only way for these features to be turned back on would be to restart the Zune. It's actually good that they built it like that. If they didn't you would have hundreds of people wondering why they cannot listen to their zune pass music or share pictures and songs with their friends.
Now some of you are probably thinking to yourself, "Okay, well how come games that came with the 3.0 and 3.1 firmware updates don't have to restart?" Don't worry, Klucher answers this question as well: "Naturally we want consumers to have all the same features that they are normally accustomed to including the playback of Zune Pass content while playing a game. Because no features were ever disabled for these games there is no need to restart the Zune."
Well there you have it. The answer to why the zune restarts when exiting a game and given by an XNA Game Studio Team Member.
<via Michael Klucher's Blog >
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Why the Zune Restarts When Exiting Some Games
