Marc Whitten of Microsoft today announced that the Xbox One might not hate indie developers as much as it had originally implied. In another stunning policy reversal we are now being told that every retail console will also be able to serve as a home dev kit. Given that everyone will now effectively have a dev kit this policy change will also effectively eliminate the prior requirement that indie developers go through proper publishers for their titles.
Here’s the official language for you:
“Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox LIVE. This means self-publishing. This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox LIVE. We’ll have more details on the program and the timeline at Gamescom in August.”
So it appears we won’t get any more information until Gamescom, which if you’re marking your calenders will be happening August 21st – 25th. Not a surprise as Microsoft apparently didn’t want to actually release any of this info today.
And so on Microsoft goes continuing to change their tune more often than a road crew. Maybe if we all keep belly-aching we can get 1 Vs. 100 back.
Source: http://majornelson.com/2013/07/24/self-publishing-is-coming-to-xbox-one/
