Microsoft Will Allow Indie Self-publishing, Debugging On Retail Xbox One

tlhIngan writes "Microsoft was the last platform manufacturer to require that all games go through publishers, a much hated policy. Indeed, their approval process was one of the harshest around. But now Microsoft will allow indie developers to self publish, and allow retail Xbox One units to serve as developer consoles. Previously, self-publishing developers were relegated to the 'Xbox Live Indie Arcade' section, as well as developer consoles often costing upwards of $10,000 with special requirements and NDAs. This puts Microsoft's Xbox One more in line with Apple's App Store, including Microsoft's new promise of a 14-day turnaround for approvals. Microsoft's retail debug console system is to work similarly to Apple's — that is, to run pre-release code, the individual consoles used have to be registered with Microsoft."

Comments

Very tempting

[SuperKendall]

If it gives me programatic access to the video stream as they were showing in some of the demos... it would be very interesting indeed.

If it's just games, that's nice for a lot of people but not as exciting in terms of something really new.

Re:Very tempting

[Vanderhoth]

Have you already forgotten about all the DRM crap they were going to, and probably still will, stick in. This is a shallow attempt to regain some public face, they're still planning on screwing their customers, and any developers, that buy into this over.

Re:In the voice of a British peasant

[MarkusQ]

Oh, thank you, sir! For the privilege of accessing the hardware I have paid you money for, I am forever grateful!

This is the sort of entitlist mentality that shows how out of touch some people in this community are.

So objecting to "you bought it but we still get to control how you use it" is somehow "entitlist"?

I agree people shouldn't buy shackled hardware in the first place, but that doesn't mean that it's in any way ethical to sell it. And claiming that the public has made an informed decision by choosing heavily marketed closed systems over the essentially unmarketed open alternatives doesn't pass the laugh test.

-- MarkusQ

Re:In the voice of a British peasant

[steelfood]

It's elitist because GGP is suggesting buying the PS4 instead. After all the crap Sony pulled, I wouldn't trust them either...

Urk

[SuperKendall]

If at any time during execution of unsigned code your network connection drops, or you sign out of Xbox Live, the hypervisor/debugger forcefully resets the console.

Well that sounds really un-appealing, I have to say... I develop a lot of times in places where I have spotty connectivity. I'll for sure wait and see what reports are like in developing for the system before I spring for one...