It just seems kinda odd that I cannot develop a XNA game and have my friends and family play it without requiring them to get an XNA subscription themselves.

I doubt I’ll ever see any part of the subscription fees my friends and family has to pay to play my game. I wonder how much money will be flowing into my pockets for those of my games that Microsoft put onto the XBLA?

Licensing, price, and distribution should be choices made by the developer, not the tool vendor. With Microsofts other offerings, the XNA has a lot of potential. Here’s hoping MS figure out how to unleash that potential. We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.

At this point the path to distribution is unclear, but at this point there aren’t any serious games made. Once the games are created, they will be certified and put on the Marketplace, just like any other XBLA game.

Jakob, they’re never going to allow for someone to just make a game and then share it with their friends freely. You have to keep in mind that Microsoft need to protect themselves from illegal activity. While you may have no ill intentions, there are many people out there who would use XNA to distribute cheap knock-off games, or otherwise infringe on copy-writes. The subscription serves as a barricade between those who want to develop games, and the majority of gamers who won’t pay $100/yr for something like that. Microsoft also want to make a profit here, so there’s going to need to be money exchanged, which also means that Microsoft will need to endorse each and every game distributed from the XNA suite. They can’t just open up the floodgates and let everyone in.

XNA is a very interesting development from Microsoft, and it’s one that has huge potential. Not only do they already have an established distribution method, they have proven that the XBLA can create hit games (Geometry Wars, Uno, etc.). I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the larger games companies moving a small team over to focus on making XNA/XBLA games, as well.