As expected (because its where they announced it last year) the next version of XNA Game Studio Express will be previewed at GameFest and based on the abstracts that have been published today a lot of you will be happy to see that networking has a talk all by itself.

Networking with the XNA Framework by Mitch Walker, Shawn Hargreaves
Playing games by yourself can be fun, but it’s far better when you can play with others, whether cooperatively or head-to-head. Creating multiplayer games using XNA Game Studio, however, requires networking support in the XNA Framework for both Windows and Xbox 360. And that support simply isn’t there…until now! For the upcoming release of XNA Game Studio 2.0 later this holiday 2007, we will be augmenting the XNA Framework to include support for networked games. Come learn where we’re taking networking in the XNA Framework, what is supported and what’s not, and how you will soon be able to enable multiplayer support in your games.

No real information on how it will work but the implication from that abstract is that it will be available for Windows and the Xbox 360

Looks like there is also some new content tools being announced between XNA and SoftImage|XSI too

This talk presents new tools in the integration pipeline between Softimage|XSI and XNA Game Studio.

and finally maybe a hint of the 'YouTube for Games' we have often heard about

and even offers a glimpse of our community sharing plans.

The rest if the information we will have to wait and see as little else can be gleaned from the abstracts. The hard working staff from The ZBuffer (i.e. me) will be in attendance and reporting live from the scene...