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.
