Time after time you’ll hear many non game developers claiming that game developers are so-called “Lazy” when a bug, less than stellar performance, or an unwanted mishap appears in any game on any platform. Certainly when a developer of any ilk hears such a thing, they must want to scream to the top of there lungs in frustration. The quote “Lets see if you can do it better” is definitely at the top of the list in such an occasion.

Skepticism and misunderstanding the rigures of game development are abound. In that case, in comes XNA Game Studio Express 2.0. At Microsoft’s 2007 game technology conference Gamefest, a few days ago, XNA General Manager Chris Satchell unveiled the now single edition versus it’s previous two editions of the XNA Game Studio. Instead of Game Studio Express for the non professional and Game Studio Professional for licensees, XNA Game Studio is now a one product one size fits all solution.

“We made the decision to make one Game Studio. We think everyone should have access to the same tool. There should be no friction as you move from accessible development to professional development,” said Satchell.

As apart of the long list of new features, XNA Game Studio 2.0 will give licensed developers libraries for access to Xbox Live including support for the matchmaking and voice-chat.

• Better performance
• Work with every version of Visual Studio (Visual C# Express no longer only option)
• Improved compression resources
• Integrated support for Softimage and XSI Mod Tool

Now, with this solution, it truly is possible to see if you can do it better. So to speak. XNA Game Studio Express 2.0 will be available later this year.

[Via Develop Mag]

-William “thewilleffect” Bell-