Home coders distribute over Xbox Live

FOR THE FIRST TIME, homebrew coders using Microsoft's XNA programming environment will be able to distribute packaged executables of their code.

Released to community acclaim last year, XNA allows the simple creation of games for the Xbox 360 and Windows platforms, with a shared codebase. Previously, distributing games built for Windows in XNA meant sharing the source code, too.

Programming fans can now give away their Windows games on the net, and can also share games with other X360 users, providing they sign up to the XNA Creators Club, a group run by Microsoft requiring the tidy sum of $99 a year.

Support for these features comes in an update called the XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 Refresh, not the most snappy of titles but a fairly accurate description, we suppose. Other improvements in the refresh include better game performance and support for 3D audio.

It rather seems like this is the first step towards letting homebrew programmers put their creations up on Xbox Live Arcade for sale. How long until the Xbox world has its first User Generated best-seller? µ