Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?! OK, so it was essentially marketing prose from Microsoft’s Peter Moore, but it’s a great idea.

Microsoft have announced a free software suite called XNA Game Studio Express that will enable anyone running Windows XP to create their own games for PC and XBox 360 (although if you want to create games for the 360 you’ll have to pay an annual $99 “Creators’ Club” subscription fee). Given the amount of manpower and time it takes to develop a console game these days, it’ll certainly be interesting to see what can be accomplished by small indie studios, or even bedroom coders. And considering the grumblings coming from developers about just how difficult it is to code for the PS3, this is a really canny move from Microsoft. The beta version of XNA Game Studio Express is due to be launched on August 30th. You can read more here