Simon Thorneycroft and Jonathan Hodgson

Xbox 360 independent development - XNA Express

Now as predicted Microsoft are attempting to create a shareware/hobbyist platform along the lines of Xbox Live Arcade via the Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express (beta).

Support for retail Xbox 360 game development isn't there yet, but for a limited payment you can swap games with other developers. Some people are predicting a YouTube style community around simple games developed without huge budgets.

Really interesting write-up on how much money can your Xbox 360 Live Arcade game make looking at Marble Blast Ultra.

But there is the darker side of piracy on the Xbox 360 in China where Microsoft tries to trace duplication devices from indicators on the piracted discs. An interesting book on the hardware protection side of the original Xbox is Hacking the Xbox which talks through listening on the north-bridge and melting the cover of chips to determine their circuitry - not legal or encouraged, but interesting to see the hardware side for a change.

Also as Xboxes and Media Centers start to become more common in the living room I think we'll see more applications being built specifically for this area, like Big Screen Business for watching financial markets.