XNA 2.0 has been officially released today!

For those of you that don't know about XNA, it is the Microsoft developed tool set based on .NET that allows developers to spend less time doing mundane tasks and more time on creating their games.

There are several things about this release which are exciting. First, XNA supports many LIVE features like matchmaking right out of the box with little or no coding needed to activate them. Second, educators and students will have access to free trials in January via the XNA Creators Club. And third, there will be another Dream-Build-Play contest beginning December 14th with the winners announced at GDC in February.

You can read the full press release here.