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:Very tempting

[Sir_Sri]

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

I don't think it's supposed to be new. It's aimed at indie devs and people like me who teach game development where we cannot justify real development kits to be handed to students (what could possibly go wrong? Oh.. right... students).

The thing is, the Xbox3 is basically a PC, so for anything really 'new' you have PC development to demo it, and then pitch that to someone who has money to let you buy a development kit if you want it. If you just want to make a game, this works well.

Re:Very tempting

[exomondo]

I can't see why anyone would bother with any of the new consoles. All of them are locked down, and all of them have at least some DRM.

Thing is if what you're interested in is playing games - which is what most people who buy games consoles are after - then it's not that much different on the PC, the games publishers are the ones that force the DRM and the platform is irrelevant, just look at EA and Ubisoft games on PC. If you're interested in tinkering (which let's face it, relatively not many people are) then you'd use a PC or an Ouya.
So I can see why people would bother with consoles, 'locked down' and DRM isn't going to be a problem for most people - check out the popularity of iOS devices as an example.

In the voice of a British peasant

[deanklear]

Oh, thank you, sir! For the privilege of accessing the hardware I have paid you money for, I am forever grateful! Next I should like to beg to turn off the camera feeding directly to the American authorities. Is such a dream possible?

Your faithful servants,
Those Who Haven't Heard About the PS4

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...

Probably only verifiable .NET code

[Myria]

I'm going to guess that they'll only allow independent developers to use verifiable .NET code in their games. Allowing native code is exceptionally dangerous, because it multiplies the attack surface by several times. It's almost guaranteed that sandboxes running native code will have escape bugs on release day.

Re:Probably only verifiable .NET code

[EdZ]

The ever-reliable (and highly cryptic) CBOAT hints that the 'self published' code will be limited to the 'Windows 8 app store' mode, along with the 3gb of memory set aside for the Win8 mode.

Re:Probably only verifiable .NET code

[Nemyst]

They've killed XNA and haven't announced any .NET-based replacement, so I'd be very surprised if that were the case.

Re:Probably only verifiable .NET code

[TrollstonButterbeans]

Within 10 years, I'd be a bit shocked if the consoles are not majorly impacted by some sort of phone that plugs into your HDTV device that supports a controller --- likely on Android, but possibly Apple too. One example: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/872297630/gamestick-the-most-portable-tv-games-console-ever

Or this pressure could come from Valve/SteamBox or an unforeseen marketplace entry.

The PSP and the Nintendo DS are on their last legs due to iPads/Android/iPods/maybe Kindles too, it is only a matter of time before cell phones (with ability to HDMI connect to HDTV) start to knock off the console business model.

It may not kill consoles --- but consoles will face enormous pressure on pricing, developer access. The PS4 would likely go down first.

Yep!

[Knuckx]

On the Xbox 360, you can use a retail console as a (limited) devkit for developing Xbox Live Indie Games with XNA. This requires two things: XBLIG Membership attached to your Xbox Live account, and the development/debug tool installed on the Xbox 360 (XNA Game Studio Connect). XNA Game Studio Connect requires you to be signed in to Xbox Live with an account with XBLIG membership before it will launch unsigned code. 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.

I am gonna guess that you are 100% correct in your guess of retail XB1's behavior when running unsigned code - at least going from my use of XBLIG/XNA Game Studio Connect.

Developers, developers

[Spy Handler]

developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers.

Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers *cough* developers, developers, developers.... DEVELOPERS!

Signed,
Ballmer

Could be good.

[goruka]

If this means:
1) Running native code (C/C++)
2) Running a regular Windows 8 Modern binary
3) Running DirectX 11

I'm in. They got me as a customer from day 1.

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...

Re:Urk

[tepples]

I develop a lot of times in places where I have spotty connectivity.

When in such areas, develop your XNA game as if it were an XNA game for Windows PCs, and work on the port to the Xbox family platform only when you have a quality Internet connection. I get the same problem: I do some development work on a laptop on the bus, where I can't test on the ultimate target platform.

Re:Xbox One

[exomondo]

There is a class of people - often very vocal - that will dismiss anything that comes from Microsoft or Apple or Sony on the basis that it's not free and open but I really have to wonder what would we actually get if they were?

If the XBox or Playstation were open they would just be pretty average, overpriced PCs. But we already have PCs so why would we want that?

People used openiboot to install Linux on the iPhone but aside from the ability to do it what good was it? Why not just get an Android phone?

Even for all the talk about the Surface there are vocal complaints about how it's locked down so you can't install Linux on it, but even if it wasn't why would you bother? Why not get an already available Linux tablet? You can even turn off SecureBoot on the Surface Pro so if there really was a great reason to open the RT version up then it could be demonstrated on the Pro because it's already open.

I'm sure there are tiny niche answers to these questions but realistically we have open alternatives to pretty much everything already. What's the point in complaining about how some devices aren't open when we could be supporting the wealth of available ones that are?

Genres other than FPS, RTS, and MMORPG

[tepples]

the pc has been out for decades, and decades of openness hasnt provided consumers a better experience than the closed systems

For one thing, not everybody agrees on what constitutes a "better experience". Some people prefer one-button installs (compared to a typical Windows installer "wizard"). Some people prefer not having to mess with third-party antivirus and third-party video card driver updates in addition to operating system updates. Some people don't want a big, noisy tower next to the TV. And some people are fans of genres other than FPS, RTS, and MMORPG. Some genres, such as platformers, fighting games, kart racers, rhythm games, light gun games, and JRPGs, are reportedly far more common on consoles than on PCs.