Microsoft have been working on a game design proram that lets anyone with a good knowledge of programming to build their own Xbox and PC games, this could be a major step forward in video gaming allowing anyone with a good idea for a game to create it, or it could be flop and all the people with the intelligence to use the softwqare would rather invest their time in something more worthwhile.

It will be available on PC or Xbox, but on Xbox you need to pay lots of varying fees from buying the software to paying an annual fee.

Here's the to the report
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/aug06/08-13XNAGameStudioPR.mspx

Anyone have any opinions or think they might use it.

Well, it`s certainly promising but i`m afraid it`ll lead to a bunch of pretty lame games. Of course, you`ll get the odd independent developers who are really interested in this and work their asses off for worthwhile games. What can i say, it`s a very nice step forward but even if it is easy to use, people will need more than this program to churn out good games.

With that said, i`d be interested in the version for the PC. Having a background in 3d modelling this might just be worth keeping an eye on.

It's hardly going to result in a "new age" or anything. Homebrew games have existed pretty much since video games themselves, and in fact this used to be more or less how games were made, way back when—people just sometimes happened to get paid for it. Unfortunately, modern technological standards are such that to create any type of game that could compete in the market, you'd need a huge team of people, and that would be difficult to pull off if they weren't getting paid. It is a neat thing for the homebrew community though, I imagine.

Would Visual Basic be of any use in this endevour?

Well i think u need more advanced knoledga tha visal basic. I know this cuz ive looked into coding a game's source.

This just sounds like like a RPG Maker 1&2 remake to me.

If it requires some actual programing skills, then I doubt it will have much in common with RPG Maker.

It will be nothing like RPG Maker, anyone with spare time can use RPG maker, to use this I think you would need some sort of intermediate knowledge of Visual C# Express. I'm downloading some beginner tutorials for it to hopefully try and make some sort of simple game. I'm not to shabby at using gamemaker, that uses a lot of script if you make an advanced game so I might be able to make something.

Hmmm have u tried learning Visual Basic and Pascal first? They are more asic and can learn the first thing from there

Bugga, the visual C# Express won't run on my computer, need some sort of windows service pack 2 but I'm not sure if it's a download or smething to buy.

Service pack 2 is a free ubdate of windows XP. Google it ;)