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Microsoft rolled out the new Xbox 360 dashboard yesterday, and not everyone is thrilled. Chief among the miserable are a number of prominent developers on the Indie Games channel, who now feel sidelined and obscured  by the face that Indie games are hidden in a “specialty store” section alongside the Game Room and Avatar Marketplace.
“I would like to suggest that this sucks,” says Binary Tweed managing director Deejay. “I’d like to know the rationale behind it – at least then the community could try and come up with constructive alternatives, rather than being pushed further into obscurity.”
Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best Games was similarly galled:Â “It just.. boggles the mind. Clearly it’s not based on even the simplest logic … which is what I’d assume gamers vaguely use when scrolling through those lists. It’s not like there’s not enough space (there’s only 3 boxes in Games and Demos.) It’s a categorical failure (literally).”
Indie developers are currently in “mourning” for the old dashboard and a time when their games were treated like games and not “specialties.” Can’t really blame them, either. Indie games had enough trouble getting recognized without Microsoft shunting them into a small, cramped cellar.
Microsoft rolled out the new Xbox 360 dashboard yesterday, and not everyone is thrilled. Chief among the miserable are a number of prominent developers on the Indie Games channel, who now feel sidelined and obscured by the face that Indie games are hidden in a “specialty store” section alongside the Game Room and Avatar Marketplace.
“I would like to suggest that this sucks,” says Binary Tweed managing director Deejay. “I’d like to know the rationale behind it – at least then the community could try and come up with constructive alternatives, rather than being pushed further into obscurity.”
Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best Games was similarly galled: “It just.. boggles the mind. Clearly it’s not based on even the simplest logic … which is what I’d assume gamers vaguely use when scrolling through those lists. It’s not like there’s not enough space (there’s only 3 boxes in Games and Demos.) It’s a categorical failure (literally).”
Indie developers are currently in “mourning” for the old dashboard and a time when their games were treated like games and not “specialties.” Can’t really blame them, either. Indie games had enough trouble getting recognized without Microsoft shunting them into a small, cramped cellar.
Mourning Thread [App Hub via CVG]
