Another announcement at GDC, Microsoft’s Xbox division announced they are creating an open distribution service for games created by the community (they really stressed community). Games that have been created using the XNA framework can be downloaded from Xbox Live.
According to Major Nelson, seven games that were “created by the community” will appear on Xbox Live for free (17 day trials [this was not mentioned until later, sneaky Microsoft]). He didn’t mention if this is a limited time trial or not (NOTE: THESE ARE TRIAL GAMES. NOT FREE). I would guess that you will need the XNA framework tool (that’s been available for download off of Xbox Live since XNA started). Nelson states that he’ll put up a video on how to download these games on the Inside Xbox section of the dashboard.
Is this a sign that Microsoft is going to allow homebrews on the Xbox? Who knows…