In a keynote delivered at the Gamefest 2008, Chris Satchell, chief technology officer of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business Group offered new details about Microsoft’s XNA and a new initiative called "Xbox LIVE Community Games”

Released last year XNA Game Studio 2.0 is a development toolset, thanks to which anyone can create games for Xbox 360. The first version of XNA was announced and released by Microsoft in 2006. Practically with this toolset, anyone can become a successful games developer.

Chris Satchell said community games that have been submitted by XNA Creators Club Premium members and have successfully passed a rigorous peer-review system will be added to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog for sale to consumers.

Creators will be able to choose from three suggested preset retail price points varying from 200 to 800 Microsoft Points to sell their creations and will receive up to 70 percent of the total revenue generated by their game.

The games will be sold through Xbox LIVE Community Games service, which will be launched in the United States, Canada and select European markets later this year.

Microsoft expects that 1,000 games will be available on Xbox LIVE Community Games until the end of this year. Consumers will also be able to view and rate community games on Xbox.com, watch trailers, and even play a trial of each game before buying it. During 2009, Microsoft plans to extend the service to other markets.

With XNA Game Studio 2.0, Microsoft hopes not only to encourage people to join Xbox Live service, but also to attract more independent programmers and small companies who want to create games for a living.

Microsoft’s initiative could prove to be very useful for the company. In a time when producing a new game has become a real business involving many millions of dollars (analysts estimate that a game may require a budget as high as $30 million), the companies are less and less willing to invest in new ideas when they do not have the certainty of their success.

And Microsoft is aware that the next chapter in the gaming console war will be about new, quality, exclusive games.

But with XNA and Xbox Live, Microsoft may revolutionize the gaming industry by creating a huge library of exclusive titles.

Earlier this year at Game Developers Conference, Chirs Satchell already unveiled the first seven games created with XNA Game Studio. The seven titles presented by Satchell were mainly action, strategy and puzzle games.

Today, Microsoft said that since the 2006 launch XNA Game Studio registered 1 million downloads.