Microsoft has announced (well, not announced, but Gamasutra just spilled the beans) XNA Game Studio Express, a free product which will allow independents and studios to write games for the XBox 360. It will actually cost \$99 to be able to deploy your games to the 360.
Oh, hey and it's official that MS will ship a HD-DVD add-on the 360 for the holiday season.
Update: Official MSDN link on XNA Game Studio. Release slated for August 30.