Oddworld Dev: Indies Not in Microsoft's Business Model

[lifeat24fps]

"People like us are clearly not in Xbox One's business model," said Lanning. "And there's nothing we can do about that."

People like me are clearly not in Xbox One's target customer base and there's nothing I can do about that.

*sigh* I guess I will just have to invest that $500 into games elsewhere. Sounds like a win-win situation to me!

 

[Stevepinto3]

I think the one thing that solidified in my mind how backwards Microsoft is towards indies is when Bastion released the Stranger's Dream DLC/Update as a thanks for so much success. PC players just got it for free which was awesome, but if you were on Xbox you had to pay $1 because Microsoft only allows so many free updates for digital titles (in fact I believe it's only one, could be wrong). Sure that's cheap and all, but seriously? Somehow that just feels like being fleeced.

Then there's the whole issue of Fez being rendered nigh unplayable for some people due to bugs and the creator not being able to afford to patch it for a long time.

Also we have the case that almost every indie title outsells what it does on Xbox in like 2 days on Steam.

Oh, and the notion that MS was trying to bully independent studios into joining with a publisher in order to be able to launch on Xbox One.

Jeez, this list could just go on and on.

 

[Adam Locking]

Yup, I remember that Just Add Water (the guys responsible for the port) wanted to release the game for XBLA, but they couldn't, because it was pushing the limits of a downloadable title, it was pushing past the 2 gb limit (judging by the PC version, it weighs 3.4 gb).

That's why? Huh...

They have that limit for Indies only or is it a universal limit for all Store File Sizes?

From what I recall, it was indies only. You could release games above the 2gig limit, but it had to go in the main market place. You were only allowed to publish in the main market place if you were an established publisher, which Microsoft defines as having already sold 500k/1m (I forget which) boxed copies of a title.

This whole thing happened a good year ago, so I may be remembering it wrong though.