I caught a tweet today from @young_adam tipping me off to a blog post from the RIM development team. It seems the Native Development Kit for the PlayBook is now being brought into a closed beta, and developers are being asked to apply to become a part of it. The applications are processed on a first come, first served basis, so any developers looking to get an early hands-on with the tools should get in and apply ASAP.

Focusing mainly on developers looking to provide a rich gaming experience on the PlayBook, the NDK allows the use of C/C++ and OpenGL to create games utilizing the QNX platform, rather than the Adobe Air based tools that developers have had available to them to date. For game developers, this means finally having the tools available to make some serious gaming applications happen, with fewer limitations, and for us end-users, it means that in the coming months we should start seeing more games ported to the PlayBook with a rich gaming experience.

Developers looking to sign up for the closed beta can find the form here.