SlashGear

In a move that sure to please wanna-be game developers in every corner of America, Microsoft made a surprise announcement at yesterday’s Gamefest conference by announcing the availability of XNA Game Studio Express, a free edition of the XNA Game Studios that will become available in beta form August 30th with the final version due out this winter. Additionally, by joining a “gamer’s club” for a $99/year fee, homebrew developers can test and run their newly-created games on their Xboxes, without needing to hack the Xbox and break through its security features.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, Microsoft also announced a strategic partnership with 10 universities to teach game development courses based on XNA, including including the University of Southern California, Georgia Tech College of Computing and Southern Methodist University Guildhall among others. With Microsoft’s XNA now free for everyone, and Nintendo’s Wii offering low-budget game developers a similar development environment with their Virtual Console service (though Nintendo’s SDK isn’t free), next-generation gamers will be able to run their own games at will. Now all they have to do is make them.

[via MegaGames]