Microsoft reveals XNA compo winners

Microsoft has announced the winners of the Dream-Build-Play competition for 2008, all of whom will now be invited to publish their XNA-based games on Xbox Live's Community Games channel, which launches with New Xbox Experience on 19th November.

Of the four winners, the Singaporean Team Gambit got USD 40,000 for their CarnyVale: Showtime puzzle game, where players complete circus stunts, and which even has a map editor for users to create content. Very 'now', Team Gambit.

Meanwhile, a Venezuelan team led by Jose Alberto Gomez picked up USD 20,000 for Battle Tennis; Nathan Fouts' outfit, Mommy's Best Games, got USD 10,000 for the side-scrolling Weapon of Choice; and a Chinese team led by Hu Ling got USD 5,000 for martial arts title HurricaneX.

Of course, as well as a handy way for independent developers to showcase their talents and maybe get a deal, the Dream-Build-Play competition is a way for Microsoft to get the word out about XNA Game Studio 3.0, which launches on 30th October and, in its third iteration, allows teams to produce games for the Xbox Live Community Games channel and even the Zune music player.

The XNA Community Games channel was announced at GDC in February this year as a way for independent developers to showcase their work direct to consumers, and Microsoft even hacked the old Xbox Live around to demonstrate a few of their games, which we rounded up for you at the time.

A community of part-time developers will be enter into a peer-review process to guide games to Xbox Live once they've been stripped of any contentious content like ethnic cleansing or Russell Brand.

For more on XNA and Microsoft's plans, check out our interview with XNA's Chris Satchell in April this year.