MS To Indie Devs: You Have a To Have a Publisher

Loadmaster writes "The new Oddworld game New 'n' Tasty is coming to every platform in the current generation and even the next generation but not the Xbox One. It's not that developer Oddworld Inhabitants isn't porting the game. It's not that they hate Microsoft or the Xbox One. No, it's that Microsoft has taken an anti-indie dev stance with the Xbox One. While the game industry is moving to Kickstarter and self-funded shops, Microsoft has decided all developers must have a publisher to grace their console."

Comments

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is a sinking ship, there is no salvage.

Duh, they are a publisher

[h4rr4r]

This is just Microsoft protecting their own turf. This is part of their culture. As a publisher they feel they must prevent anything that might jeopardize that income. Most companies would not go this far, but Microsoft has a culture of "cutting off their nose to spite their face."

Re:Duh, they are a publisher

[Nerdfest]

... or they're lying ... again.

Re:Duh, they are a publisher

[h4rr4r]

I think it is natural.

Sony has to do well with PS4 or their console dreams are over. Microsoft is doing very well with the 360 and thinks they are on top of the world. This means Sony is pulling out all the stops to get converts. Microsoft thinks they can be as dickish as they like and keep enough customers. Sony has done this in the past when they were on top.

Re:Duh, they are a publisher

[denmarkw00t]

It was a promised feature that was removed later - would some of the people who purchased it have dropped that $$$ if they knew that, even at some point in the future, they'd have to make a choice between running Linux or playing online? I know I wouldn't have, if Linux were part of the draw to a PS3 (too pricey for me tbh). Besides, their track record isn't great, and it'll be worth it to watch both of these companies after launch... just wait and see.

Re:Duh, they are a publisher

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony advertised that those PS3s came with OtherOS. They did not advertise those PS3s come with OtherOS as long as you have no interest in playing new games or enjoying new features on your console, especially when those features and games have no conflict whatsoever with OtherOS.

It's like a dealership warranty requiring oil changes at the dealership (I know that's only the case for extended warranties now) and after the 12th oil change they rip out the radio (but they were nice enough to tell you that they'd do that the day you bring your car in for the 12th oil change). They lied because the radio was part of the car and nowhere in the warranty does it say you'll have the radio ripped out on the 12th oil change.

Lying by omission is still lying.

Let's also not forget about the rootkit, which was as obvious of a lie as any.

Re:Duh, they are a publisher

[Anonymous Coward]

"Changing your mind" after customers purchase your hardware = "lying". I'm 37, and I wasn't expecting that feature to be taken away. I'm not buying a PS4 partially because of that - and the rootkits, and their incredibly poor response and questionable statements related to the PSN hack.

(Side note: this is quite possibly why Sony isn't doing the online thing; it isn't being gamer-friendly, its them remembering their network was unusable for 3-4 weeks.)

Re:Duh, they are a publisher

[dougisfunny]

Here is a product that does X, Y, and Z*.

Disclaimer: We are selling it as X, Y and Z in perpetuity, but in a few years it's going to be only X and Y, and then just X a few years after that. Or X and Z. And eventually X* (because some of X won't be compatible without Y) and Z.

So, not lying, just bait and switch?

Hopefully now they do hate M$

[Coeurderoy]

One of the main issue with "consoles" is that it really is controled by a bunch of sociopath focusing on how to put the maximum of toll boths to efficiently bleed the marcs..

Under the pretext of make the experience "safe", you need the get some sort of "authorisations" from the console makers, and now it seems that Microsoft feels strong (or is weak) enough to add an additional hurdle to avoid "wasting their time" with the unwashed masses.

I hope that "android" consoles become popular (and that it will not end up with Google doing exactly the same thing M$ is doing ....

Re:And?

[TWiTfan]

MS used to have XNA, and basically let anyone publish on the 360 with just a $100 a year license. Not sure why they abandoned such a forward-thinking program. But it does fit in with the general MS stance of making every fucking wrong move imaginable over the last 3-4 years, and scrapping every decent idea they ever had.

Sometimes I think Blamer has secretly gone nuts, and no one has the balls to have him committed. It would certainly explain why he's absent from MS public events these days. But at least Howard Hughes was smart enough to delegate well after *he* went batshit. Balmer, by contrast, seems determined to not only collect all his urine in jars, but also to run his company off the cliff.

Re:Is MS *TRYING* to commit suicide?

[Greyfox]

There is a tendency in corporate culture to drink the kool aid the top is serving. Take SGI. Perfect example. They had no clear strategy a bit over a decade ago and I outright confronted one of their sales reps about it and asked him why I should buy their products when I knew IBM would be around 10 years from now. He gave me some bullshit response that SGI had solid products and platforms and they were out of business less than a year later. If someone in the company had just said "We don't have a clear strategy and are going to get crushed by Sun and IBM if we don't develop one," a couple years earlier, they might have been able to pull it out. They did have some things they actually did better than other companies, they just chose to throw all that away and try to pursue the same course IBM and Sun were. Even Sun couldn't pull THAT shit off.

So maybe Microsoft DOES actually believe, in their isolated corporate culture, that their platform is strong enough to get away with the shit they're trying to pull. Gamers have no loyalty and everyone has already decided to jettison them. Some people are changing consoles, some people are going to PC gaming. Microsoft could save itself a lot of money and just scrap the entire Xbox line right now. If Sony offered an easy path for indie developers, the Xbox developer landscape would be a barren wasteland within a year.