Dream Build Play 2009 and XNA Game Studio 3.1 Announced at GDC!

You’ve been waiting for this news and now it is here!

Beginning Monday, April 6 developers from all over the world will have an opportunity to submit their unique game creations to the Dream-Build-Play 2009 competition for a chance to win a cash prize and an opportunity to sign an Xbox LIVE Arcade publishing contract. Winners will be announced this fall. Last year, more than 7,800 members of our amazing community enrolled in Dream-Build-Play, yielding more than 350 completed games from all over the world developed using Microsoft’s free XNA Game Studio tools.

Several of last year’s winners, including Team GAMBIT for “CarneyVale: Showtime” and Mommy’s Best Games for “Weapon of Choice”, collectively took home more than $70,000 in prizes and have since become top sellers on the Xbox LIVE Community Games Channel. Winners from 2007, “The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai,” “Blazing Birds” and “YoHo Kablammo!” from the United States, Canada and UK respectively, are all slated for release on Xbox LIVE Arcade in the coming months.

Additionally, Creators will be happy to hear about our improvements to the XNA Game Studio development tools, available to professional and hobbyist developers this spring, which will allow developers at any level to take advantage of new partner additions and Xbox LIVE features. Community Games developers will be able to include customized Avatars, which have quickly become one of the most popular features on Xbox LIVE. We'll have many more details about XNA Game Studio 3.1 soon

Stay tuned for more news from Team XNA and GDC 2009!