So if you haven't noticed, I haven't blogged in a while... I told myself I wouldn't post another item until I updated my web site's codebase to a current version of Loggo. Well, development and planning for The Code Trip has been eating up all my time (as well as getting my house on the market), but there was no way I could hold off on this one.

Two killer announcements from the XNA team. For starters, the first feature of XNA Game Studio 3.0 was announced: support for developing games to run on the Zune. These will work with all current Zune devices (Zune 4/8, the original Zune 30, and the Zune 80) and you don't need a Creators Club membership to deploy to your Zune. It's 2D sprite graphics only but does have networking support similar to current XNA GS 2.0... pretty amazing. More info on the Zune Game Development FAQ.

Next is the announcement of Xbox LIVE Community Games.

The XNA team is delighted to announce the Xbox LIVE community games, scheduled for launch in the holiday 2008 season, with a beta coming in spring 2008.  This offering gives the opportunity to share, peer review, download and play games created by the community, for the community.

Now you'll be able to share those XNA games you've built with other 360 owners, and they don't need to know anything about Creators Club, Visual Studio, etc. You'll even be able to sell your games through Xbox LIVE! There's a FAQ on this as well for more information.

The dream of XNA and the Creators Club is coming true right before our eyes. For the latest info about XNA Game Studio, keep it tuned to http://creators.xna.com/ and their What's New page.