http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/aug06/08-13XNAGameStudioPR.mspx
This looks like it would be fun if offered in a course at SIUE...The article I read yesterday said that Microsoft is doing it in part to raise interest among young developers in game development. I believe this is a cool idea especially for the hobbyist, but I'm kind of biased because my uncle is working on the project out in Seattle right now ;-)
I've heard about this for a little while. I'm curious though how advanced the game development process will be. Is it something my 10 year old brother can do or something that you'll need a little programming knowledge in order to tackle it.
I talked to my uncle about it yesterday and he said the first release is going to be very programming oriented with plans to simplify in the future...
:-o Yeah, but what are the chances that the CS department would incorporate this in the CS curriculum as an elective course? More than likely they'll say that we won't get enough students to sign up for the course and won't even bother. I'd really like to chance to participate in this. Maybe they could incorporate it into the game design course that was held last semester and offer it this Spring or next Fall. I bet they would get a lot more attendance than they think.
SIUE might offer this course if you can get a professor interested. They'd likely offer it as a CS 490/590 course.
However, it'd probably take at least 3 semesters before it was offered. One semester to get the professor interested and researching it, one semester for he or she to pitch it to SIUE as a course, and then finally to teach it.
It may be easier to get Dr. White to add this as a small section in the game development course. Though, isn't the theory what's important? If you understand the theory, you can do all this on your own. Plus, not all of use own XBox 360s, and it would cost SIUE some money to get a few.