Xbox Live Arcade Extensions for XNA Announced - Get Ready to Write "Full" Live Arcade Games in XNA

www.developmag.com - Microsoft unveils XNA Live Arcade extensions

"Microsoft has detailed its Xbox Live Arcade extensions for XNA at the GDC08 XNA Developers Day.

The extensions are designed to help developers write fully-fledged Xbox Live Arcade titles using the XNA managed framework, exposing functionality that is hidden to the public out of necessity - such as achievements and TrueSkill rankings - ...

The new features added include leaderboards, ranked matchmaking, the ability to display game status on a friends list (known as 'rich presence'), game invites, achievements and extra TCR compliance functionality.

The extension is structured in Visual Studio as a third profile alongside Xbox 360 and Windows...

...

The Xbox Live Arcade Extensions for XNA are set for a late April or early May release."

THIS is the way to make the Xbox a winner. Let "the world" write real, full, complete applications (err... games) for it and make it easy to deploy them (the deployment story still needs some work... maybe we'll hear more about that in the coming days).

I think the killer XNA app for the Xbox may not be a game, but a "home productivity and connectivity" application. Think a very simple, easy to use, 10 foot "Family Info Center" application. Put Flickr, Twitter, Listas, Spaces, etc, etc on on Xbox. Heck you can make it so easy Mom and Dad could use it... SO much easier than training them on how to use and maintain a computer... (Darn it... now I'm all excited about this and want to build it NOW. Stupid work.. ;)

As I've preached before, give us an API/SDK and we'll build some amazing things...

(via Machaira's Space - XNA Live Arcade extensions unveiled)