Indie developers cannot self-publish on Xbox One

It's ok, Sony seems to be willing to take them:<p><a href="http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/04/sony-indies/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/04/sony-indies/</a><p>So far everything I've seen makes PS4 a clear choice over Xbox One as a console, although I'm still curious what Valve has in mind, but it doesn't look like they are in a hurry to announce anything so could be another year or two of waiting.

It's funny that Microsoft feels XBox Live Indie Games was such a mistake and seems to think that indies did so much harm to them, given that indies generally feel like Microsoft has been intentionally harming them from the start.<p>They basically left that system to rot without supervision, and then it did. Where's the surprise in that? It's like they decided to greenlight it only so they could sabotage it and use it as proof that they don't have any reason to work with indies. It's incredibly stupid given that some of the best indie XBox Live Arcade exclusives (or former exclusives) were all built using XNA - Bastion, Fez, Dust - but they screwed those devs as hard as they could too, despite the fact that those games were <i>partially funded by deals with Microsoft</i>!

The whole design of the One seems mired in the past. No substantial changes to the developer relationship, no acknowledgement of the app market, a subscription service to go online, DRM and used game fees to protect the existing retail model, etc.<p>And in exchange... a cable box? Will people even have cable in five years?<p>It's like they set out to design the next Xbox without acknowledging that anything other than hardware has changed since 2005.

This means that most of XBLA type/calibre is still going to happen (90% or 100% of XBLA had publishers)<p>This move is more for quality control (plus data on the lackluster downloads of Xbox Indie games) rather than hatred for indies. Its still short sighted but it would also make Xbox One deal with less cruft of games, thereby avoiding the signal-to-noise being bad (remember all games are not silo'ed anymore.) making the game library browsing experience just generally more appealing to the mainstream customer. I doubt these demographic will miss Xbox indie-type games, heck I don't think they even visited that tab.<p>But I do like the intense focus on games by the PS4 camp more. Just happy that Xbox One and PS4 are now going in totally divergent paths.

I'm honestly quite surprised given how important independent games have been for iOS and Android.<p>I was honestly expecting both players to provide app stores where developers could submit applications, whether games or not, possibly giving them an advantage over the other platform by having more apps, better development tools, etc.

This is a super confusing move from Microsoft.<p>First, don't they want indie game developers to jump to Windows phones and tablets? I'd presume Microsoft could (if not already) let developers to code once and publish everywhere that speaks Microsoft, no?<p>Second, Walking Dead game was crowned 2012 of the year by many publications, and my personal game of the year Journey, both are technically indie? Shouldn't that mattered?<p>Sigh, as usual, I'll just vote with my wallet.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is that Microsoft pretty much confirmed yesterday that the XBox One is running some form of the Windows Runtime.<p>(Source: <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-runs-three-operating-systems/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-runs-three-opera...</a>)<p>So if I want to make an app work across Windows RT, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and the XBox One, I have to submit three separate apps that are all coded the same way, to three different app stores.<p>Why couldn't Microsoft just bring the Windows 8 marketplace to XBox One and Windows Phone 8? That alone would fix the indie self-publishing problem and in turn make the XBox One more appealing.

I'm actually fairly confused right now... hoping someone here can enlighten me.<p>"[..] Microsoft has confirmed that it will release no new versions of its XNA game development toolset, which all Xbox Live Indie Games are developed in."<p>The system is not backwards compatible, because it apparently is a rebuild from the very core. The old code that drove previous games will not run on the new system, and anything being written for it must be written or ported to whatever the new languages and requirements are.<p>If they don't publish an update to the toolkit that lets indie developers write for the system, doesn't that essentially mean there can't be any indie development for the system? It looks like they're basically saying we'll keep things just as locked down as they used to be, oh and also we won't be providing the necessary tool to even begin working on our system. (Unless they intend to release a new dev-kit and just didn't see any reason to note that?)

<a href="http://www.ouya.tv/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ouya.tv/</a><p>It's a dev kit itself as well and its android and yeah, they'll publish all indie stuff. :)

Ok, so this article from polygon links to an article on shacknews[1].<p>But the article on shacknews uses an interview from 2011[2] that's talking about xbox live on the 360, not on the xbox one.<p>We can say that if microsoft didn't say anything about this policy, it will stay - but at the same time, we don't know because nothing up-to-date was said.<p>Also, the article from shacklenews uses an article from gamesutra[3] to say "Xbox Live Indie Games are exempt from that policy, but that marketplace isn't necessary seen as viable."<p>But from the same article "[..] at least for mid and high-level performers, XBLIG is becoming a viable platform for hobbyists and single-man shops to make some cash and get their game seen"<p>[1] <a href="http://www.shacknews.com/article/79309/xbox-one-wont-allow-indies-to-self-publish-games" rel="nofollow">http://www.shacknews.com/article/79309/xbox-one-wont-allow-i...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.psnstores.com/2011/10/interview-eufloria/" rel="nofollow">http://www.psnstores.com/2011/10/interview-eufloria/</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26932/InDepth_Xbox_Live_Indie_Games_Sales_For_2009_Plus_Some_Perspective.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26932/InDepth_Xbox_Live_I...</a>

Sony arent just making it easy to publish, according to this (<a href="http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/03/21/unity-coming-to-sony-consoles-this-year/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/03/21/unity-coming-to-sony-con...</a>) they're actively making it easy to develop for their ecosystem, meanwhile MS are killing XNA. At least those C# game devs will have somewhere to go with their skills...

This is truly strange considering what has happened on mobile appstores that believe in a free market. They have benefitted heavily from it. Lots of new great companies like Halfbrick, Firemint and Rovio might not have happened.<p>At the most basic level they will lose lots of hardware sales as the app/game development that surrounds mobile appstores sells lots and lots of hardware.<p>Ballmer's scream should be changed to (Approved) Developers, (Approved) Developers, (Approved) Developers since Microsoft knows better what is good and what isn't than an open gaming market. The top down ivory tower controlling nature of consoles still seems to exist in the Xbone.

This is kinda strange. I know that the indie market on 360 wasn't all that great. But the way they are billing this thing as an overall living room system rather than just a game system makes me think that there could be great potential for more casual games as well as actual applications.

I'd take all the supposed garbage in the indie dev section to get the gems that appear there from time to time, like Cthulhu's Revenge or Miner Dig Deep. I spent hours playing those games and they cost me a few bucks max. I do not understand this move.

I think there's a bit of lazy thinking here in these comments. There are XBox branded indie games on Windows Phone and Windows 8.<p>Just because MS isn't publically saying anything doesn't justify jumping to this thread title's conclusion

Even on the PS4 indies need to be invited to publish, though, right?

My favorite Xbox game for years has been Castle Crashers which I assume is an indie game. Will indie games previously purchased on Xbox Live run on Xbox One?

Well, that's stupid.