Cheats-Area.com

   Microsoft announced the XNA Game Studio development platform, an user-friendly enviroment that small developers, game enthusiasts and students can use to make games, with aparent ease. XNA Game Studio is an extension of Microsoft's cross-platform XNA technology, which offers a standardized set of tools for both PC and Xbox 360 development.

   The toolset, which can be downloaded for free, is available as beta software on August 30 and full product by the end of the year. It comes in forms of the entry-level XNA Game Studio Express and the advanced XNA Game Studio Professional. Development using Express and the release of games on the PC will be free, but for games to be available for download on the Xbox 360, developers must pay $99 a year.

   Microsoft will release the professional version in spring 2007. This pro version will feature capabilities more geared toward professional game developers and, of course, a higher price,which is yet to be revealed. Launching alongside the August 30 beta toolset is a starter-kit that contains tutorials and basic games for beginning developers to tinker with and thus learn the ins and outs of programming.

   Scott Henson, from Microsoft Game Developer Group, said:

   "Ports of classics like Pac-Man and Galaga on Xbox Live Arcade are just the "low-end" of what the toolset can create.(...) Our ambition is to get a game as fully realized as, maybe, Halo 2. We don't know if we'll get there ... but certainly we envision being able to do that with this technology."