XNA: moving on to mobile platforms, XBL Community Games in Beta

Back during the last Game Developers Conference, Microsoft‘s Chris Satchell announced that XNA will soon be providing a community publishing pipeline for the Xbox 360 and the Zune. Now it seems that XNA might be extending its reach even further. Read the story in the full article by following the “read more” link below.

Looks like there’s a storm in the horizon over the future of mobile games. Not long ago, Apple announced its intention to develop games on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nokia’s N-Gage is also getting its groove on lately.

Now it seems Microsoft‘s preparing to jump in on the fray. Only, Microsoft seems to be giving the reigns to the community rather than established developers. Quite a leap, seeing as how stringent they are with Xbox Live.

Back at the Game Developers Conference, Microsoft’s Chris Satchell announced that the XNA developer’s toolkit will soon provide a publishing pipeline on the Xbox 360 and the Zune, for the community to release their own user-created games.

Now, Satchell has revealed that XNA will be further expanding its reach on mobile platforms, again giving the community the chance to distribute their games to the public. First stop on the list may be smartphones, as Satchell remarks:

Well, we’re extending to Zune this year. Beyond that, I think there are other platforms we could extend to such as, for example, smartphones.

Also a minor note for Xbox 360 gamers: the Xbox Live Community Games that XNA will provide is still in its beta stage. Satchell says that they are still undecided on whether or not gamers will have to pay to play the games provided by the service.

Via Develop