XNA Game Studio Officially Released

Microsoft has officially released the public beta of their XNA Game Studio Express which lets regular users create their own Xbox 360 or Windows XP games.

As reported earlier this month, Microsoft has come through with their promise to empower regular users with the ability to create their own games for either the PC or the Xbox 360 game console by releasing the public beta of their XNA Game Studio Express software.

Available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna for download, and at no charge, games built and created on a Windows PC can then be migrated to the Xbox 360 game console starting this holiday season. And while the beta software is currently available as a free download, there are a few strings attached including a yearly subscription of $99 or a four-month trial for $49.

More than 20 universities worldwide have pledged their support to the new developer software including the University of Southern California’s GamePipe and the DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond Washington.

“XNA Game Studio Express is an incredibly accessible tool for making games for Microsoft’s game platforms and will provide our university students with modern tools and console development experience,” said Claude Comair, founder and chairman of the board at DigiPen Institute of Technology. “And now with our ProjectFun for XNA Game Studio Express, we’re eager to extend our educational offerings on Windows and Xbox 360 to include young children.”

Microsoft has also announced that they are beginning enrollment for their Torque X program which includes the Torque Game Builder and a version of the Torque Shader Engine. The final version of Torque X will be released this holiday. 

The final version of XNA Game Studio Express and the XNA Creators Club for building and distributing games on the Xbox 360 will launch simultaneously this holiday.  XNA Game Studio Professional will be available in spring 2007.