Can't find a copy of the conference just yet but it seems like GameSpot will have a copy to watch soon

So yesterday was the big Microsoft press conference and there were a few things that caught my eye from a game development point of view. (though I only caught the last hour so I may have missed something)

1. XNA Community games got a very short mention. They showed a video that had some of the current community games as well as few that I seem to remember from last years Dream Build Play. The 'date' mentioned was Fall which might sound different to the Holiday 2008 we have been hearing but since Winter starts December 21st I guess they technically overlap. No new news announced here.
2. New dashboard - I missed this bit so I don't know if this will affect the Community games part of the dashboard.
3. Avatars - similar to the avatars on other consoles you can customize a look alike (or not look a like) and have it appear in games. Lets hope the XNA Framework allows us access to these models as some point.
4. Some new fun stuff to do with the Xbox camera. The new Viva Pinata game uses the camera to read trading cards and You're in the movies records your actions while you play fun games and then edits the footage into short little movie clips. Seems like some fun things to do with the camera... maybe one day we will get some access to that.
5. Finally a couple of new controllers - an improved Guitar Hero controller which should hopefully just map to an standard XInput device and a new Microphone for the Lips karaoke game which, like the Rock Band microphone will need special drivers and a new API.

So looking forward to some announcements at GameFest where maybe we will learn if any of this new stuff will be available to us