Back in January, the folks at Microsoft apparently thought enough of PC and Xbox 360 game-creation tool "Kodu" that they included it in the company's Consumer Electronics Show presentation. When it didn't make the cut during Microsoft's presentation last week at E3 in Los Angeles, I naturally assumed the program, which was supposed to be out this spring, had hit a snag and been delayed or, worse, killed.

On Monday, though, Microsoft surprised seemingly everybody and announced "Kodu" will be out sometime this month.

What is "Kodu," and why is it worth getting excited about? On its face, the colorful, cartoony application looks a lot like Sony's "LittleBigPlanet" for the PlayStation 3: It allows players to create their own games and upload them to Xbox Live. What's been shown so far looks undeniably cute.

Whether "Kodu" ends up being more ambitious than, inferior to or simply different from might take a while to figure out, however. With a simple programming language that aims at being accessible to gamers of all ages, "Kodu" has the potential to eclipse "LittleBigPlanet" by letting gamers create everything from platform-jumping games, like "LBP," to racers, strategy titles and beyond.

Yet "Kodu's" success will largely depend on what gamers create. More important, it'll depend on the infrastructure Microsoft builds to distribute the levels. If Microsoft builds a "LittleBigPlanet"-style sharing and rating system that lets users download levels for free, offer feedback and provide YouTube-style star ratings, "Kodu" could be a hit. If Microsoft incorporates Amazon-like recommendation software, it could be a megahit. But if the company simply relegates "Kodu" content to the ghetto of the ratingless Community Games channel and insists that users pay to download others' creations, expect it to be forgotten by everyone but enthusiasts.

Part of the reason the current Community Games marketplace has fallen short of what it could be is that, other than the scant sales figures that Microsoft releases, there's not a very good way to sort out what's good and what's worth playing. Nor is there anything in the way of player feedback. How great would "Kodu" (and Community Games, for that matter) be if I could upload my game, get feedback, incorporate the changes and then upload an update for my game that would automatically install the next time someone fired it up? It wouldn't directly make Microsoft any money, but it'd make a great selling point for the 360 as a whole and provide many a fledgling game developer with fond memories of building that first game on an Xbox platform.