According to a report in c/net News, Microsoft will release tools, dubbed XNA Game Studio Express, later this month which will allow anyone to create games for the Xbox 360. Initially, the tools will be free but a small fee will be payable to publish the games and then only to an audience of other game creators. In the longer term, the company plans to allow people to release these games commercially on Microsoft Xbox Live Arcade.

I’ve written before that the video games business is broken.  My first game took 9m and cost about £45k to develop.  The latest blockbusters take two years and $10m.  In addition the high price of development kits and restrictive licensing agreements from first party manufacturers make the console development industry a closed shop.

This is why I am hugely enthusiastic about this news.  It will unleash a torrent of innovation.  I was a judge for the Independent Games Festival for several years and I saw, first-hand, how much creativity, talent and energy exists outside the conventional games ‘industry’.

There is an additional benefit.  Getting experience in console development is a chicken and egg problem.  It’s hard to get hired to develop video games if you don’t have experience and hard to get experience if you haven’t been hired.  Entry-level, DIY development might break the log jam and encourage more talented people into the industry.

Full disclosure: Microsoft is a client of my company Articulate Marketing, although I don’t work for the Xbox group.  My interest in games development stems from the fact that I set up and ran a computer games company before selling it in 2000 to become a writer.

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