.. Microsoft is on its way to offer the same easiness to the indies. Gamereactor has exclusive info for this matter. A developer with a long and proven track record is currently in talks with Microsoft about self-publishing on Xbox Live. This developer would have leaked some points for the new Microsoft policy upon indie studies.

Microsoft would have a new policy upon the indies, the new policy would separate small indie studies (one of two person) for the more complete independent studios. The difference would be in the following point: larger studios, won’t be allowed to self-publish anything that they can produce, it’s a manner to control the published software in the market.

Moreover, the same developer states that Microsoft could cut the price of devkits for select indie developers. 10.000$ is a barrier to enter in the industry for too many groups.

vgleaks: Rumor: Microsoft allowing indies to self-publish

This would be so cool to finally see. I'm wondering how much early influence Larson-Green is having on this. (Yo if at all if its this far along.) And with this, I hope we can see Fez II come over to XONE, sooner than later.

It's time to let go. We've done everything we can. It's time to let go...

Good luck getting Phil Fish to agree to that.

Knowing Microsoft I bet there's going to be a catch...

this was bound to happen eventually.

id say there would be a * associated, but under this new leadership, you never know. haven't really heard anything about Ms Larson Green.

but with the way how they reversed the policies, MS has proven they can be agile.

Microsoft would have a new policy upon the indies, the new policy would separate small indie studies (one of two person) for the more complete independent studios. The difference would be in the following point: larger studios,won’t be allowed to self-publish anything that they can produce, it’s a manner to control the published software in the market.

So a worthless gesture which doesn't help the majority of indie studios. Cool.

I think you may have misinterpreted the "one of two person" part if that what your talking about.

@connerthekewlkid: The article looks to be have been written by someone whose native language is not English so something might have gotten lost in translation but I took it to mean if company size > 2 no self publish for you.

I took it as one of two person meaning two different categories of developers but who knows.

If this is true, they're getting there, but still leaving a lot of developers out in the cold, and there will no doubt be exclusivity clauses attached to everything, which is one of the big problems indies have with MS.

Sure hope so. There's literally no reason not to allow self-publishing these days. Far as I know, the games still have to go through certification, anyway, so they're not gaining anything by keeping the publisher requisite in place.

Well I like that there is certification there still. Otherwise we would have spammy games in the XBLA store that charge you dollars for nothing, really.

I'm just glad that they seem to be merging the Xbox indie store into XBLA, hopefully with their own indie folder with full featured placement and stuff. 'Super Amazing Wagon Adventure.' :D

@blu3v3nom07 said:

Yeah, certification's fine. I'm just saying that, because indie games would still have to be approved through it, there's no reason not to allow self-publishing. They're not gaining anything by enforcing that extra restriction.

For sure. If games like Super Amazing Wagon Adventure (I totally forgot about that! That game's crazy) get more visibility, then that's awesome. Microsoft's been needing to fix that for too long.

Amazing news, I'm surprised by all the great news that's been coming out of the X1 in the past little bit.

Indie isn't about the size of the team otherwise EA could just say "Only two people worked on this game....can we get the indie level of treatment?"

I'm just glad that the gamer barriers are coming down little by little. At this point, I honestly don't know what else they can "improve," from here to launch. A RAM increase would SURE BE NICE, but I'm guessing if they dropped the price by a maximum (-)$70, then I think they can gain some good faith.

Creating a solid parity with PSN + discount games will take some time, I would guess.

At this point, with all the backtracking and policy changes, I wouldn't be surprised if XBone didn't load up with the Playstation logo and a small xbox live moniker underneath it.