Doubtless, most of you caught this news over on Joystiq but it deserves mention here. Microsoft has announced the release of XNA Game Studio Express, a consumer version of its XNA development tools -- a beta version should be available on August 30th. This will allow homebrew developers to create games for both Windows and the Xbox 360, though a fee will be charged for the 360 functionality. The upshot of all this (surely, most of you are already there) is the ability of the 360 community to actually create the games we'll be seeing on Xbox Live Arcade.
This initial XNA pack -- available for a $99 annual subscription -- will be followed next year with a professional version. The professional version should cost well under $1000 dollars, putting PC and 360 development within the grasp of even the smallest of would be game makers. Users of the XNA platform will also be given access to sample games (and perhaps allow users to trade?) to get the creative juices flowing.
It will probably be a long time before we see your garage game hit the real Xbox Live Arcade, but the possibilities are very exciting. Any adventurous coders out there looking forward to this?
[Via Joystiq. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
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1. Wait? is that packet also needed to download and play the games on my xbox 360? or is the fee just for developing the games.. I sure hope the community arcade games are free.. that's why it's called "community arcade"..
Posted at 9:36AM on Aug 15th 2006 by ExpandedFlame