Things have changed
It’s no secret that Microsoft dropped the ball with indie games on the Xbox 360. A good start turned into a mess of a situation that left a bad taste in many developers’ mouths. But it sounds like they’re starting clean with their newly announced ID@Xbox independent developer publishing program, announced at gamescom this morning.
One of the major concerns for both indie game makers and the gamers that would play their games was that independent titles became increasingly difficult to find on Xbox Live, working up to a point where they’re essentially lost in a mess of other offered content.
Microsoft says that this all changes with ID@Xbox, set to launch this fall.
Microsoft promises easy discoverability of indie games on Xbox One. They’re gearing up to create a place where all games are located together on the Xbox One Store. Users will be able to use their voice to search the entire catalog for games. Beyond this, Spotlight will showcase Editors Picks for games from the store
A recommendation engine will bring forward new games, working from your history to recommend games you’d like to play, and Trending will let you know what your friends and the rest of the Xbox community are playing.
On the dev side, Achievements and Challenges can be used by developers to create special events for their games. Community members can also use the same tools to create their own events.
Finally, Xbox One’s Game DVR and uploading features will help others find new games among the shared videos of game capture.
Marc Whitten, Xbox Chief Product Officer, said, “Xbox One was built from the ground up to be a great platform for developers of any size to create and share their ideas with the world. We are committed to bringing together the imagination of game developers from around the world together with the power of Xbox One.”
“We know Xbox fans will fall in love with the quality and diversity of games on our platform. We are committed to ID@Xbox and are fully invested in helping independent developers succeed on Xbox One.”
