I'm going to get sick of this democracy line fast

So, I do believe this is going to have massive and impressive repercussions throughout the industry, but I'm really going to get tired of the democracy line. The distribution and licensing of games is still controlled. This is allowing more people to learn the API's and systems, which is awesome...but it's not democracy. Democracy would be digg.com for Xbox Live, and I haven't heard them announcing a voting structure for moving games onto Live. Unfortunately that would probably mean that I'd be playing Taylor Hicks on Xbox Live. F*ING SWEET!

Not.

Microsoft to "democratise game development" with new dev platform // GamesIndustry.biz

Developers won't be able to sell games made using XNA Game Studio Express - but enhanced versions of the most successful titles could eventually appear on Xbox Live Arcade. A second toolset, XNA Game Studio Professional, is aimed at developers who want to create games for retail, whether via Windows digital distribution, Xbox Live Marketplace or high street stores.

Microsoft has already signed up several partners to help out with the new initiative. GarageGames has provided its Torque Shader Engine and Torque Game Builder 2D designer for XNA Game Studio Express, and Autodesk has contributed its FBX file exchange format.