Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: Indy developers getting squeezed out of XBLA?

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Monday, February 05, 2007

Indy developers getting squeezed out of XBLA?

There's some good stuff coming out for Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) -- and some of the newly developed games (like Cloning Clyde) are top-notch, solid, and have great game play.

Now, big publisher / developers like Electronic Arts and Rare (owned by Microsoft) are developing games for XBLA.

Which is great, and as a gamer, I'm looking forward to the games.

But I wonder, does this squeeze out independent developers from playing?

Take the Rare effort, for example. Nick Burton (Kameo software engineer) says a 10-person team is working on the effort. An effort from a established studio with Microsoft backing. And the game from #1 publisher EA(Boom Boom Rocket)? That's got to have corporate focus and muscle behind it.

Add to that Microsoft recently upping the XBLA title limit from 50MB to 250MB, and some additional development is arguably needed (though it may or may not be linear).

Does this squeeze indies out of the game, or at least make it harder for them to compete? Does it make it more difficult for their concepts to be heard, because they're vetted in the same pool as the big dogs?

Since the XNA Studio Express/Creator's Club/Community Content processes for the Xbox 360 haven't been hammered out by Microsoft yet, indies don't yet have that secondary option -- and many arguably have higher goals, anyway.

I hope Microsoft is looking at a broad and deep XBLA portfolio -- otherwise they're going to get eaten by the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console (VC) offering, with its huge breadth and depth of first-party (and Sega and Hudson) titles.

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Monday, February 05, 2007

Indy developers getting squeezed out of XBLA?

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