Via the Xbox One official website, Microsoft have been flaunting that the “Xbox One has the best games”. This claim stems from E3 awards given to them by various sources which I have yet to verify, but until now there has been one area that has been up in question – independent development. While Sony Computer Entertainment have welcomed indie developers more or less with open arms, Microsoft seemed to raise a few eyebrows with restrictions that were to be made to independent development for their console.
Last month it was confirmed that the company is well and truly backflipping on their initial plans (Much like many other aspects such as an online check every 24 hours) and opening up their online store for all independent developers to publish into. Today it has been confirmed how this system will be managed.
From today, the Independent Developers @ Xbox program have opened up for people to sign-up to. Once accepted into the program, developers will receive a nice package containing two Xbox One development kits and access to a range of other services all free of charge with no intention to charge from updates (Something that none of the console producers should have enforced in the first place – as after all it is usually the end user that suffers).
According to the ID@Xbox program website, they have no specific criteria as to who will be accepted, instead opting to evaluate each application individually based on its own merits for the initial trial phase. However don’t expect miracles if you are a brand new studio as they claim “we are looking for professional independent game developers who have a proven track record of shipping games on console, PC, mobile, or tablet”. Eventually they do however hope to open all retail consoles to be developer units. Games will also have to go through the standard certification processes.
In the end, provided that the development community embraces this new initiative it should be a win win win situation for the gamers who choose to go exclusively / prefer the Xbox platform, developers and Microsoft themselves. At the very least developers shouldn’t have to put their games through a public opinion phase like a certain other online store.
