Taking the form of an announcement at the 2004 Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft today lifted the wraps from a pre-release version of the first XNA Studio toolset along with the XNA Framework at this week's GDC.

"Developers need a better way to make games and manage the production process," said Chris Satchell, general manager of the Game Developer Group at Microsoft. "XNA Studio enables all developers - from major development studios to the two guys moonlighting on a dream project in their garage or dorm room - to create games in new, more efficient ways."

Designed to reduce escalating development costs and time, XNA Studio comprises a set of tools and technology which will be made available via the community technology preview (CTP), providing the first opportunity for game developers to get their hands on key components.

Within the CTP is a pre-release version of the XNA Build, which provides a structure for orchestrating, debugging and optimising the code pipeline. XNA Build also provides an opportunity to easily identify game asset relationships and dependency information, opening up benefits to the developer such as incremental content builds to identifying unused content.

"Creativity is the core of Ubisoft's success. Since the very early days of Windows(r) and Xbox(r), and now with Xbox 360(tm), XNA and soon Windows Vista (tm), Microsoft has provided us with excellent developer tools, support and online services in addition to great hardware," said Martin Sevigny, director of production technology at Ubisoft Entertainment SA. "With this collaboration, our developers can focus on their creation instead of being constrained by the platform."

Featuring a custom implementation of Microsoft .NET framework along with new libraries to help developers create cross-platform games on Windows Vista and Xbox 360, the XNA Framework provides developers the opportunity to re-use code and assets in multiplatform development, without sacrificing performance or flexibility.

"We've been writing games for the last 15 years as monolithic, single code bases that are growing unwieldy and complex," said Chris Butcher, lead developer at Bungie Studios. "C# on Xbox 360 lets us think about new modes of programming. It lets us get back to creating a game rather than wresting with code, while maintaining the real-time performance that we need."

"We were proud to be a launch partner with Microsoft for Xbox 360 Live Arcade, and we've been pleased with its success so far," said James Gwertzman, director of Business Development at PopCap Games Inc. "Anything that simplifies the process of creating great casual games and lowers the development complexity for Windows and Xbox 360 is something we're happy to support."

Microsoft has also confirmed that it plans to open the Xbox Live platform to external developers and publishers, which should lead to a greater use of the online service amongst third-party titles. Using this platform, developers will be able to create and run their own back-end servers to run alongside Xbox Live, which should go a long way to appeasing some of the criticisms surrounding MMOs via Xbox Live.

This update is expected to appear in the next version of the Xbox Development Kit, which is expected to ship to developers across the world in May. A couple of examples have already been witnessed of the benefits this will have on games, in the shape of the "Spectator" mode in Project Gotham Racing 3 providing the scope for up to 30,000 gamers to watch races in real-time, and the "Live Revenge" and "Save and Share" features in Burnout Revenge.

Microsoft is hoping this decision will provide greater freedom to developers and publishers to create all-new online game experiences, providing an open platform to boost innovation along with the solid foundation of Xbox Live. As noted above it should certainly provide a platform for the Blizzard's and NCsoft's to bring popular MMO titles to the Xbox 360.