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New Live Marketplace Snubbing Indies
Xbox Live received a big overhaul yesterday, and many indie devs aren't happy with where they've ended up.
The new dashboard dramatically changes the way that players will be able to access independent games and download them. Instead of games showing up in the game store, players will need to navigate over to "Specialty Shops" in order to access XNA developed indie games. That will mean it's also impossible to search for games by title or genre while navigating the normal game store.
It's a slap in the face to many small developers that have been putting games up into Xbox Live's indie service, and many of them are voicing their concern in a forum called the App Hub, a gathering place for developers of Windows Phone and Xbox 360 games. The forum used to be the XNA forum.
On the other side of the coin, it must be pointed out that neither Sony nor Nintendo have a route that allows for as many independently developed games to reach potential players as Microsoft.
It remains to be seen if the recent changes will have a chilling effect over indie game sales on Xbox Live in the long term.
via next-gen.biz
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