Vlambeer signs to ID@Xbox, Microsoft going in right direction despite having reservations, says dev
Ridiculous Fishing developer Vlambeer has signed up to Microsoft's ID@Xbox program which aims to bring more independent, self-published talent to Xbox One.
The studio, which has also pledged its new game Wasteland Kings to PS4, published a new blog post in which Rami Ismail wrote," Sony has been great for Vlambeer. It’s important to note that that doesn’t mean that we’re not talking to the other parties – in fact, we definitely are," and added later on in the post, "Sony is doing great, we've signed up for ID@Xbox and we'll continue talking to Nintendo."
On Microsoft's new strategy, Ismail added, "ID@Xbox, Microsoft’s somewhat surprising indie initiative, is an exciting development. It’s something we’ve been talking about with Microsoft for a while now and something I feel is a huge leap in the right direction.
"I still have reservations about some details that we hadn’t heard of before: launch parity for being allowed to release a game is still a bit of a strange notion: simply being allowed to launch on a platform does not mean that developers will accept such demands if the competition does not have them. If anything, launch parity excludes developers that are more comfortable with releasing on PlayStation platforms first."
"Only allowing console-published developers to release a game on Xbox means that indies are basically forced to go through either Microsoft Game Studios or – ironically – PlayStation to be able to launch on the platform. I caught up with Chris Charla today at gamescom and he reassured me some of these limitations are temporary or guided by hardware constraints, which is reassuring.
"Another reservation might be that Microsoft doesn’t exactly have a great history in following up on their promises, and before we fully back the initiative we want to go through the gauntlet for a project. Making Chris as visible as he is makes someone responsible for what happens, and that feeling of knowing who to turn to makes Microsoft a much more agreeable entity to do business with."
What do you make of the above? Is ID@Xbox a good move? Let us know below.
Via GI.biz.