Microsoft taps into indie game development w/ Xbox Live Community Games

Microsoft is making a push to leverage cross-(Microsoft)platform gaming promised by XNA development through new community features for the Xbox Live online gaming service.  With "Xbox Live Community Games", scheduled for launch this holiday 08 season, Microsoft wants to encourage budding, independant developers to try their hand at game production with its XNA tools.  To make XNA even more attractive, the development suite is being offered for free to students in select universities across North America and some European countries.

Developers can create and submit their games onto XBL Community Games for peer-review; naturally they can review submissions from other contributors as well.  The cream of the crop can make it big onto the Xbox Live Marketplace proper.  Some examples are already available on the XBL Marketplace for limited time trial ending March 9th, but you'll need the XNA Creators Club Game Launcher to grab them.

Microsoft is also bringing XNA gaming to the Zune media player, so XNA-produced games made available on the XBL Marketplace can go handheld if they're feature compatibility with the player's control.  Unfortunately, Windows Mobile devices will be left out in the cold, so no XNA fun on PDAs for you!