Across the UK, I'm always bumping into academics who are either teaching, or are planning to teach on a games programming degree.  And to a man (generally), they ask whether or not they can use XBOX 360's for games dev in the classroom.  And unfortunately, I've never had a good answer for them - until now!

We've just announced, at Gamesfest, the arrival of XNA Studio Express - a development enviromnet for developing games that can be run on any XNA Framework-complient platform - which of course includes the XBOX 360.

This is massive news, and I've been sitting on since - get this - January 2006.  That's been tough.  However, the bag and the cat have parted company, and you can read all about the plans for XNA Studio Express (and of course the other versions of XNA Studio) in the official press release, the XNA Studio Team Blog, and in Dr Dobb's article Pimp my Warthog. Honestly.

We're working with a handful of UK Universities to check how this is going to work in the teaching envrionment, and once happy, we're going to announce a UK Academic Launch Event, and a series of hands-on workshops run by none other than the mighty Rare. 

Watch this space - I'll be posting here as we get the events slotted together.  Expect some more news in the next couple of weeks.

Andy