XNA Express BETA released - games industry 2.0

I've been following the development of XNA for a long time since it's introduction at GDC a couple of years ago and was aware of the developments with XNA Express and the possibility to develop games for the Xbox 360.

In my old job I used to spend a lot of time working with universities teaching games programming and design and this was always the number one ask - "how can I get an Xbox Development Kit?". For a number of business and IP issues we could never make this possible in the UK and we had been hoping for an XNA Express type product for a long time.

A great article by Bill Thompson @ the BBC talks about his experiences of the games industry way back when (when I started off in computers there were developers writing games in their bedrooms which was the start of the games industry here in the UK). Combining the product, some great teaching material from someone like Hull or Derby, and some very passionate students I think this could open up a new world of Indie/Cottage-industry games companies in the UK with loads of ideas and the potential for new Rares/Lionheads/Bizarres right here in sunny old Blighty!!

It's now available here, so go get it and create the next Grand Theft Auto or Project Gotham: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21e979e3-b8ae-4ea6-8e65-393ea7684d6c&displaylang=en 

tags: XNA, Games Programming