Indies sing praises of Microsoft's ID@Xbox programme

Great to see. I think developers are liking the new Microsoft with its friendly indie approach. I think the xbox game pass is customer and dev friendly.

Independent developers have called Microsoft’s ID@Xbox programme “hugely important” to the games industry, and have singled it out as one of the easiest digital publishing platforms to work on across all platform holders.

Speaking to MCV at an ID@Xbox preview event this week, several developers were very warm in their praise of the platform, with Sumo Digital’s designer and PR analyst David Dino (pictured right, top left) saying that the opportunity to obtain a free Xbox One development kit is vital for helping developers get their ideas out into the open.

“I think it’s great. All these different programmes, especially ID@Xbox, have been really good. Just allowing people to have dev kits when they don’t necessarily have the funds to purchase something like that, you get a lot of crazy ideas that people are brewing that they don’t necessarily have the ability to do straight out unless they have a set amount of capital, so a programme like ID@Xbox is amazing because it’s an amazing option for them.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/indies-sing-praises-of-microsoft-s-id-xbox-programme/0180496

Recently we got insight to why indies are liking Microsoft more than Sony.

Winter’s company (Canuck Play) has been hard at work developing a three down football game for the XBox One and PS4 that he hopes Canadians across the country will get behind, even if it won’t be an official CFL title. I recently caught up with him to discuss everything from the game’s mechanics, to release date, to how he overcame the disappointment of being shunned by the league.

What has been the biggest difference between the support you’ve received from Microsoft vs Sony?

It’s been night and day. Microsoft has been behind us since December of 2015, back when we submitted our prototype, business plan, and goals to bring Canadian culture and content to their platform. They were very keen to help and have supported the project by providing us with the same publishing agreement that other large studios have. They’ve also supplied us (at no cost) with console development kits and software licenses, investments worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Our experience with Sony was quite different. We approached them at the same time as we did Microsoft but it took over 11 months for us to come to a consensus on a publishing agreement. Furthermore, unlike Microsoft, Sony has provided no additional support. The development kits and licenses came at our own cost.

http://www.3downnation.com/2017/03/19/interview-canadian-football-video-game-almost-ready-launch/

Awesome news. I hope Moon studios has a new game under their belt ready to be revealed at E3.

Hahahahah. We all know how xbox has treated indie developer......... like shit.

Your a funny lemming. Desperate but funny.

Sony used them. I knew Sony was doing it to look like the nice guy, but they will not bother with them anymore now. Sony E3 indies got ignored.

The best platform for gamers will be xbox . MS is helping them out alot this will only benefit the xbox in the long run. State of decay was an indie title for the 360. so you often find gems among the bad ones.

@loe12k: Yeah MS has been really good to Indies this gen. They were good to them early last gen too. But towards the end a lot of indie devs were complaining about MS practices, glad they turned it around.

I makes sense that they are making it easier, it's the key to make their games ecosystem succeed. Right now Microsoft has a much bigger future proof Indie platform for developers than any other company. Which covers, PC, Console, tablets, 2 in 1s, AR/VR, X86 and ARM and eventually phones with Windows 10 ARM.

Lol thanks to Sony we have one of the best indie games this gen: Rocket League. And there are many more indies that are console exclusive to PS4 than to xbone

@dakur: Not Rocket League...lmfao

Why is that thanks to Sony? I've watched "The Story of Rocket League" from Noclip, and nowhere did they thank Sony

Sony gave the devs a space for their first installment on PS3 and then Rocket League took off thanks to it appearing for free as one of the first games on PS4 (the devs have said this themselves). Rocket League came to where it is thanks in part to the Playstation brand.

Thank you Microsoft. Sony gets rekt yet again.

These are all devs on the Microsoft ID program, why don't they interview devs that got rejected instead of ones under Microsoft contracts?

Microsoft is disrespectful to indie devs that went with PS4 first, it's why we continue to see far more indie games on PS4. Microsoft deserves credit for improving compared to where they were in 2013 when everyone gave them the middle finger.

Dakur most likely a lie.

Wasn't there lots of complaints too many Indie Games on PS4 at the time?

Rocket League is a glorified mario party mini-game.

Yes because Sony was trying to market them as AAA games remember No Man Sky! Sony threw them under the bus when the game bombed hard.

I think the biggest example of a publisher treating a indy dev like dogshit is Sony and Hello games.

So, um, cool I guess? Sony has more indie support and better indie games than Xbox, then there's PC that is totally dominating, so basically you're fighting for third place again.

If only you spent half as much time playing your Playstation as you do commenting on every single post about Xbox (a console you don't care about) you might be better off. It's quite sad tbh.

The only real barrier to indie gaming I saw was from years ago preventing staggered releases on Xbox One, and prohibition against staggered publishing, all of which Microsoft rectified by 2013 but still there remained a prevailing attitude that such policies still existed. Most notably for me I remember being bummed by their refusal to allow for Machinarium on the Xbox 360. But again, this was among many of the changes of MS damage controlling their horrible reveal of the Xbox One prior to launch. I remember some time later GamingBolt did an interview with the Broforce creator and asked whether a Xbox One port of Broforce was considered and they responded that Microsoft wouldn't let them. Of course, ID@Xbox responded saying on no occasion did their studios ever contact Microsoft about interest of publishing the game on their platform but said they'd love the title. I mean, other than Devolver Digital's blatant lying, they likely just assumed that was the case, probably due to prevailing misinformation. I can only imagine communities such as NeoGAF being highly bias in its moderation have allowed these attitudes to persist without any correction, and that continued since the community by many is still considered an intelligentsia of the gaming info-circles; I mean, almost shamelessly, gaming press circles continually preface their articles and YouTube channels with "today on NeoGAF blah blah blah". It's like they treat that community like the Associated Press or Reuters of gaming journalism and that's troubling to me. But hey, some are getting wise to it, refusing to regurgitate the dribble of mindless automatons, and that's refreshing. Goes to show too that Microsoft, after getting too big an ego, was humbled by their horrible release of the Xbox One, and they're not so thick headed that they allowed such misdirection to persist, have made moves to rectify.

Though they've corrected course I believe with this policy, I still think they're behind on their need to invest in third party games with funding, and to build an arsenal of titles to come to their platform. I mean, they invest all kinds of money it seems in the wrong way, especially early on in the Xbox One days. And they make big acquisitions like the Mojang and MineCraft for over $2 billion; why not spend a fraction of that to bring some real quality exclusives to Microsoft's platform?

When you are dealing with dumb ass fanboys like @dakur they just believe Sony can't do any wrong and that they are the saviors of all! If they would of released Rocket League for free on Xbox Live the game would of been just as popular. The game has sold well because it is a bad ass game, good gfx, good gameplay, and it is easy to play. The developers are the ones to be praised for the success of Rocket League!

Wrong! M$ didn't even release the previous game from this developer on which Rocket League is based on the 360 while Sony did on the PS3. So from the start, if they had relied in M$, the dev would have simply died or the game not even would exist. And they got 6 million downloads on PSN thanks to the PS4 having a much bigger install base than the xbone. So yes, we have a great game like Rocket League in part thanks to Sony, not M$. So lems trying to suggest Sony is fucking up indie devs are the usual clueless idiots.