While most consoles shun the homebrew community, Microsoft is attempting to embrace it. They are going to release a set of game design tools based off of XNA called XNA Game Studio Express. Anyone with XNA Game Studio Express can create their own PC and Xbox 360 games. “XNA Game Studio Express will ignite innovation and accelerate prototyping, forever changing the way games are developed,” Chris Satchell, general manager of the Game Developer Group at Microsoft said. “By unlocking retail Xbox 360 consoles for community-created games, we are ushering in a new era of cross-platform games based on the XNA platform. We are looking forward to the day when all the resulting talent-sharing and creativity transforms into a thriving community of user-created games on Xbox 360.”
Here’s the real kicker the tools are free. The beta hits the net on Aug. 30, 2006 and a full release comes out this holiday season. Microsoft thought outside of the box with this idea and it could bring a new group of developers to their camp. Best of all everyone is going to benefit from the XNA platform Gamers are going to get a chance to create games they want to play and the result will be a wealth of diverse indie titles exclusively for the 360.
