The irony here is bloody staggering. For years, PC gamers have been getting sub-par ports released months later than consoles, if they get the same titles at all. Now they have the gall to tell indie developers of all people "if you ever want your title to come out on Xbox One, you have to release with us first"? Unbelievable.
Developing for consoles these days means spending a TON of additional funds to do so. You have to sell your soul in preferential contracts for the console manufacturer (like the one being discussed right here) share a huge amount of your profits (remember that the advent of the X360/PS3 $60 USD AAA game price was because these platforms charged extra for the benefit of being on their system! PC versions and those on the Wii at the time sold for $50 instead and rightly so...it wasn't until later that Activision's famed Bobby Kotick prompted Activision, Ubisoft and the other big publishers to simply charge $60 across the board because "Gamers will think that's just how much it costs") and much more.
These sorts of agreements are horridly pathogenic - I can remember how the developers of "Defiance", Trion Worlds had many plans that would have made a much better game, but came out and said "Sorry, we can't put in the chat system we wanted on PC, amongst many other features because the consoles can't handle/won't use/don't like it. Oh, and we had that patch for gamebreaking issue X available weeks ago on the PC, but thanks to console agreements we can't release it until the console versions have been vetted by their manufacturers. Sorry. Oh, and by the way...releasing a patch for the console version literally costs us thousands of dollars in fees. So that's great.) I can also remember that Zeboyd Games, makers of "Breath of Death VII" and "Cthulhu Saves the World" said their little $2.99 game package made more money launch day(weekend?) on Steam as it did all year on Xbox Live Indie where it had resided previously. First class, indeed.
Personally, this is yet more evidence that we need to do away with "consoles" all together. They're simply locked down, proprietary, overpriced PCs these days that funnel both player and developer money into the hands of unctuous middlemen. I hope that developers who see this XboxOne policy will turn the other way and tell Microsoft to go to hell, that it isn't worth the hassle to bring their games to a platform that is more interested in control than having a great stable of gaming content. While it seems that Playstation 4 is the lesser of two evils and the WiiU is a different animal all together, they're all basically keeping a status quo that is no longer needed. We don't need "exclusives" where in order to play a game you really like, you have to buy the proprietary pseudo-PC that's favored by a given publisher
We have open platforms and much more powerful, customizable, and inexpensive hardware today. Play on a tricked out desktop, a laptop,a "living room/console/entertainment" PC etc... or even our various smartphones and tablets. Buy your games from a variety of vendors and play them on a multitude of servers! There's still a role for previous console manufacturers and first party publishers - like Sega, they can now design for PC! I'd love to be able to buy the next Smash Bros and Hyrule Warriors from Steam, and play it on Linux while using the excellent, controller peripheral that Nintendo is now selling with PC compatibility in mind!
Its time to put an end to "console wars" and the pathogenic practices of the console middle-man cartel, as evidenced by these policies, and move towards an environment more friendly to developers and gamers alike.
