Microsoft is really going after a new market lately. They have invested millions of dollars into providing (free) express editions to their great software programming packages  for C++, C#, VB, and Java .NET. Now every kids dream of creating a game is within reach with the XNA Framework Microsoft has provided free of charge. If you want to take it a step further you can subscribe to their creators club as a "Premium" user which will give you the ability to advance training, tools, and the ability to publish your game to the XBOX Live community (of course after a peer review from other creative club members). Once release you can actually sell your game to the XBOX360 market through Microsoft's XBOX Live Merchant store.

If your looking to become an XBOX360 game programmer/designer first get a good beginners book on programming with C# and the .NET Framework to see if this is something you can handle. C# is no toy it is an advance language which is a bit higher level then C and C++ but still generates fast code when compiled. While back in the day building a game with C a very fast language but, it was a very cumbersome complex process that made many newbie game programmers running. If you find your not too keen on programming there are many other aspects of the game that are very important such as 2D, 3D Graphics, Animations, Game Design, Story Lines, and Sounds & Vocals.

To play Microsoft XNA games on Windows XP SP3 or later you must have the XNA Framework installed which can be downloaded at Microsoft's site Microsoft XNA Framework 3.1.

You can test to see if your computer is all up and running correctly by downloading and extracting this zip file Sample Game tutorial1.zip and execute the windowsgame1.exe within. This is the completed and compiled tutorial number 1 from the creators.xna.com web site education section.

Here are the resources to get started on creating your very first game:

1) Down load a copy of Microsoft C# Express Edition

2) Create An Account at creators.xna.com

3) Follow the Getting Started Page

4) Do tutorial #1 "Beginner's Guide to 2D Games" and tutorial #2 "Beginner's Guide to 3D Games". The nice thing about these tutorials is that they assume you have never programmed before. My 13 year old nephew did both these tutorials and had a extremely fun time.

5) Dig into all the other game samples XNA provides to help jump start you into game development.

Happy Gaming...