Self Publishing now allowed on Xbox One.


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Yet they only started calling themselves indie after the true new indie studios started the "indie craze". Sorry there's more to being indie than self publishing. But majorly you have to self publish, but that alone doesn't make you indie.

If you go truly just by the meaning intoned by the name sure, but that was never how it was applied and used in the indie scene.

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Homebrew is more than just creating indie games. Even Microsoft knows this and took inspiration from XBMC when designing the 360's dashboard/features.

 

Something people need to remember (or indeed, realise at all).  The computer game industry BEGAN in "indie" land.  That's where all the great titles from the 8-bit era came from and without them, giants like EA wouldn't exist today.

 

Personally, I'm rather glad they're making a comeback.  "AAA" titles from the big publishers are invariably over-priced, over-produced, and over too quickly.

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I'm glad to hear that Microsoft is finally changing their ridiculous treatment of indie games. This is good news for the most part. However, the whole "use any retail Xbone as a dev kit" irks me, and it doesn't sound great long term.

 

The only way that would work is if indie games are not given full run of the hardware. There needs to be resources reserved for any dev tools and profilers used for actual development in order to truly develop games for a controlled environment such as a console. Could that be the reason why so much RAM is reserved for the OS? Or does that mean "indie" games are going to be apps running inside the Windows 8 vm and cannot be coded "to the metal" so to speak? Neither of those options makes me happy.

 

There are a lot of technical questions I have about how this works, but I guess we have to wait for Gamescom to find out more. (though I don't know why Microsoft is waiting so long)

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The ridiculous thing is that people think they've changed anything, they simply hadn't announced their plans yet.

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I'm glad to hear that Microsoft is finally changing their ridiculous treatment of indie games. This is good news for the most part. However, the whole "use any retail Xbone as a dev kit" irks me, and it doesn't sound great long term.

The only way that would work is if indie games are not given full run of the hardware. There needs to be resources reserved for any dev tools and profilers used for actual development in order to truly develop games for a controlled environment such as a console. Could that be the reason why so much RAM is reserved for the OS? Or does that mean "indie" games are going to be apps running inside the Windows 8 vm and cannot be coded "to the metal" so to speak? Neither of those options makes me happy.

There are a lot of technical questions I have about how this works, but I guess we have to wait for Gamescom to find out more. (though I don't know why Microsoft is waiting so long)

They're indie developers they're not going to have the resources available to develop games that take that much advantage of the Xbox hardware anyway.

The ridiculous thing is that people think they've changed anything, they simply hadn't announced their plans yet.

Shhh. You'll ruin their irrational MS hate. :)
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They're indie developers they're not going to have the resources available to develop games that take that much advantage of the Xbox hardware anyway.

Shhh.  :)

That's exactly the kind of thinking that Microsoft needs to do-away with, and why I said I don't think it's a good long-term plan.

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That's exactly the kind of thinking that Microsoft needs to do-away with, and why I said I don't think it's a good long-term plan.

 

Why. MS can't change the resources available to a one and two man basement team of guys who code games on their spare time. once your games get bigger than this and have the budget for triple A graphics, then you'll not just want, you'll need a publisher to be able to recoup your investment.

 

Look at Tim Schafer, with all the money he scraped up with his kick starter campaign, he's rpetty much run out now and need further funding. 

 

games with extensive storylines and triple A graphics are VERY costly to develop. as costly as a movie. just the 3D models need to originally be modeled for the same quality as a movie CGI model, then it needs to be fully rebuilt from the group up a second(possibly a third and fourth time for other LOD levels) for the in game model, and the high res CGI quality model is used to create a normal map for the game model(s).

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I don't see why being able to unlock the retail unit to be a devkit is a problem?  It's the same as unlocking a WP into a dev phone so you can sideload your app into it.  In the end indies are going to be using the same tools they've used to make Windows 8 and WP WinRT apps/games, basically VS, or Unity and so on.   Really all they need is to be able to run the game on the hardware itself, not a emulator, and I'm sure when you go through the process to unlock the XB1 and make it into a devkit that you'll also get access to extra tools/software that will run on the XB1 itself like on the regular devkits.   Sure you're not getting the extra RAM of the devkit, but yeah, you're not working on a big budget AAA game that needs to work with gigs of data are you?

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with bloating trend in programming,

i'm sure indies can also produce stuff with gigs of data,

heck, some japanese flash game makers are using more than 2 GBytes worth of data,

and they sell their flash game on a DVD.

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That's exactly the kind of thinking that Microsoft needs to do-away with, and why I said I don't think it's a good long-term plan.

 

 

I don't think MS is thinking that way at all. Their announcement regarding this clearly said they wanted ALL developers, via self publishing, to have access to all of the xbl features and services.  That tells me this could be more than just being restricted to the win 8 environment.

 

To me, this seems like great news, but clearly some don't agree with that. I guess we will see what Gamescom tells us.

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I think people forget how Windows works, and has worked forever.   Allocating 3GB, or in this case reserving 3GB for the OS and apps is what Windows has done for the longest time.  It doesn't however mean that the amount reserved is locked and untouchable from anything else.  If a game needs more RAM the OS will give it up and page out what was in there.   Any apps in the background will just be suspended until you switch to them again and so on.  I expect it will be very much the same as it is on the PC.

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we still dont all the details of how development will work, but if its anything like win/phone 8,we know youll pay a small fee to be a dev,and we already know xbox one can be used as a dev kit. we also know microsoft says everyone can be a dev.

 

now in comparing on how sony is doing it,well to register as a dev,you need these requirements


Before applying, please make sure the following requirements are met:

  • Form a Corporate Entity
  • Obtain an Employer Tax ID Number (see www.irs.gov) (Recommended)
  • Static IP (Required for DevNet Access)
  • You must be physically located in US, Mexico, Central America, South America, or Canada

http://us.playstation.com/develop/

 

also,polygon spoke to developers,and learned the cost of a ps4 dev kit is $2500

 

http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4553842/so-how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-for-playstation-4

 

although some devs told polygon that sony is "loaning" them dev kits for a limited period of time.

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PSN didn't really cater to the "indie" crowd, they catered to the small studios that liked to call themselves indie. XBLIG was the only true playground for indie developers on consoles. And it was horrible. and until Sony decides to let people use their regular PS4's as devkits, they'll still be behind MS on the indie dev support. 

 

So no. MS never was behind Sony.

 

I don't even disagree with you. Microsoft undoubtedly has the better software & tools for indies on consoles to create indie games. But I'm not just talking about bedroom developers, I'm including all those small teams that form after being laid off from somewhere / leave to team up to make something they've talked about doing for years. Those are indie developers too who have a bit more money to spend/support themselves but Microsoft has forced them to go back sometimes to the same publisher they left when they got tired of their ###### / fired.

 

Microsoft have the platform and the tools to support indies. We all agree. What you guys defend them on without merit is the seperation between XBLA/XBLIG and think it's 1) fair and 2) a good idea. Clearly it isn't and Microsoft even realiase this now that they've changed it / followed Apple, Sony and Steam.

 

What you guys aren't giving Sony praise for is their approach to working with indies and their open model. Sure that doesn't even help them to create anything, but those small differences are enough to please them to let them get on with developing their game how they like.

 

Both MS and Sony have helped pay for development for some exclusive indies, so I'm not going to bring examples of releases in because they did it for their own interest and wallets more than helping to realise a developer's dream. But my above reasons are what really seperates the two and we're seeing it more often now that they like Sony's platform more. If the better software and higher subscriber count isn't enough to entice you to develop for 360 then you know something is wrong.

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I think people forget how Windows works, and has worked forever.   Allocating 3GB, or in this case reserving 3GB for the OS and apps is what Windows has done for the longest time.  It doesn't however mean that the amount reserved is locked and untouchable from anything else.  If a game needs more RAM the OS will give it up and page out what was in there.   Any apps in the background will just be suspended until you switch to them again and so on.  I expect it will be very much the same as it is on the PC.

 

Yeah that's a great point. It seems obvious that they would leverage all the ideas they developed in 8 with the X1

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Microsoft to allow developers to start self-publishing on Xbox 360 as early as August ? report

http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/27/microsoft-to-allow-developers-to-start-self-publishing-on-xbox-360-as-early-as-august-report/

(Y)

Is it me or are we only starting to see news like this since Don left?
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Is it me or are we only starting to see news like this since Don left?

 

That's true, but are these announcements thing that MS just whipped up since he left?

 

Remember, he was the guy that said an Indie program was on the way all the way back at E3.

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Is it me or are we only starting to see news like this since Don left?

 

It's just the timing, no way these changes, which have a good deal of work that needs to be done behind the scenes, were done in the few weeks since Don left.   Honestly I think this was always the plan.  Remember the XB1 is the new system and it'll get more of the big name AAA titles as time goes on and the 360 will get less and less.  That means that MS had to open it up more since they want to keep selling them for at least the next 2 years iirc.  This is the best way to do that, as the AAA titles coming out to the system dip you'll see more arcade titles come up.

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Microsoft didn't have a choice, developers and indies forced their hand. Otherwise they look like the bad platform out of them all when they don't sell X game and have a smaller selection on Marketplace.

 

Competition ftw (Y)

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forced their hand ? they announced at the original reveal they would announce their indie plans at a later date, and at the same time they pretty much hinted it would be fully open for indies.

 

seriously... 

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Already told you before we have different opinions that we can't agree on, so why bother replying with the same response to me? Just ignore my posts.

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Already told you before we have different opinions that we can't agree on, so why bother replying with the same response to me? Just ignore my posts.

how exactly is it an opinion.  if you watched the conference they specifically said it would be announced at a later date.  That is coming directly from MS, so any opinion you may have of something different is probably just anti-MS for some reason.

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The issue of self publishing has been around a lot longer than 2013. Eventually Microsoft were going to have to change their rules and requirements. If Microsoft could continue to force developers to sign publishing deals, which benefit them when they happen to be said publisher, they would. But in the last few years we've seen more and more indies become tired of it and going elsewhere. If they had continued that practise, eventually XBLA/XB1 would look like the weakest platform.

 

I'm not saying Microsoft didn't plan to change self-publishing or denying they'd announce it later. I'm saying they didn't have a choice, it was always going to happen and they've probably held off/planned it for a long time.

 

Yes I watched the event, no I'm not anti-MS and believe it or not, this news is the my favourite thing about XBLA/XB1 for reasons I've explained in my previous posts.

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