Looks like MS removed that 10k fee for title updates on the 360.

They have also removed the re submission fee.

If I recall right Fez had a big issue with the "Save bug" Because of the fee. And recently Fez 2 was said to not be coming to the system because of said issue.

Hopefully this will carry over to the X1 and encourage more updates for games currently out to fix issues.

Edit. Wonder if this had anything to do with State of Decays Jaw dropping sales.

Second Edit. Looks like they dropped the Fee near the start of this year.

Source

Source 2

Good for them, Microsoft seem to be doing a lot of the right moves lately, hopefully they can continue this.

Also I heard a rumor about them looking at their self-publishing rules too, anybody know anything about that?

They are doing this for good PR and hopefully games, also I doubt that Fez2 is coming to the Xbone.

It was rumored to be announced at Build. I suggest following Will Smith on Twitter since he is there right now. v

Good for them. At least they're trying to keep their appearance up now instead of spitting in our faces.

Fish made it pretty clear that Fez II will not be on a Microsoft console. I'd say after the pain they caused him, he's washed his hands of them.

I seem to recall him saying he wants to put the game out on Xbox One, but they "won't let him".

Because Microsoft cares.

Also Don Mattrick ran out of jets to buy.

Hes on a rant again.

https://twitter.com/PHIL_FISH

I find the knee jerk pessimism about anything decent MS does a little tiring, not because I'm emotionally invested in defending them but because its not like Sony is any different. Everything they've done has been a reaction to MS, just as everything MS has done since their debacle has been a reaction to Sony. Even the big price reveal was entirely reactionary, and in fact Sony was rumored to be having a PS Eye in every box for a total price of $500 until the last minute.

This one is good because Phil Fish is literally going insane on twitter.

I am not including Sony in my dislike for what Microsoft represents. Sony could have followed suite and I would have dropped them too but they didn't. They made the conscious decision to not sell an oppressive platform and that was the correct decision. Microsoft doubled down on horrible policies and then changed their minds because people didn't want what they were selling. Microsoft needs to do more than just adopt friendlier policies to gain my trust back. They showed their hand when they had the worst cards possible and tried to bluff anyways. They're liars in my eyes and I won't support them.

@spraynardtatum: How are they liars when it was their advertisement of the policies you hated that made you dislike them? If they were liars, wouldn't they have needed to pretend to have policies you liked?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, it was 10k to post an update?! Yeesh.

They said that they couldn't remove 24 hour check ins and that removing their used game policy was not as easy as flipping a switch 2 days before they flipped the switch. Then they removed the family plan and said it couldn't work with the policy changes.

Also I wouldn't call advertisements much better then lies. "Everything is better with Kinect"...

I also think saying that used games are killing the industry (in so many words) is a bold faced lie.

Keep it on topic please.

Edit. This is nothing about about what MS has said or Kinect or your issues with it. Its about the removal of the issue thats been putting off a lot of updates for the 360 games.

@the_laughing_man: Sorry, boss.

This is great. Probably. I expect Microsoft to continue down this route of saying "Hey, you know that awesome thing Sony's doing? Well guess what, we're doing that too!" I understand the pessimism, though. They're not exactly doing this stuff for the "right reasons".

Now they should allow indies to self-publish.

@brendan: *shrug* My career is littered with the corpses of Microsoft technology that promised to be the next big thing but then abandoned them for because of "a change in plans". Forgive me if I don't really believe a lot of what Microsoft is peddling at this stage.

Geez, Microsoft gets shit on him for being so anti-everything. I for one, am glad to see them changing all of that. Yeah, they've made a lot of mistakes but at least they're attempting to make reprimands.

@the_laughing_man: He's complaining that Hotline Miami sold way more than Fez because it had better marketing but I'm pretty sure it sold way more because it was a simpler idea that appealed to a wider audience. Also it had a hot ass soundtrack. I seem to recall FEZ having a LOT of buzz around it's time of release so I'm pretty sure they did some sort of advertising. Not that it needed all that much since the growing controversy about how long it was in development had a bunch of people talking about it online.

Good I guess, but that's really how it should have been all along, not really something to praise them for.

He also said something about HLM got better help from its publisher. And I saw about the same amount of marketing for games.

The only marketing I saw for Hotline Miami was the controversy over the violence of the websites/forums would put up. IMO Fez got more exposure since it was a game suitable for all age groups, had a lot of people talking positively about the game (whole internet got together to solve puzzles!) and was featured in Indie Game: the movie. I didn't encounter the blank square bug on the dashboard Phil mentions on twitter either.

This is good but it should not have been an issue in the first place. Microsoft needs to do a lot more to gain back the trust of the indies, this will not be enough. Quite frankly with all the bridge they have burned, I don't think even self publish will get indie back right away.

I'm no hard-core Fish hater but lets just call it like it is.

The man is so self absorbed that the only way he can process the idea of Fez not being the most successful game of all time is by dumping blame on everyone and everything around him except for himself. Nothing would've made him happy short of a month long parade leading up to the release of his game - and then he'd probably still find something to complain about when he failed to sell as many copies as the latest Call of Duty.

Fez had more time, exposure, marketing and financial assistance than Miami Hotline could have ever dreamed of.

ON TOPIC: This seems like good news. MS certainly has taken a beating over all this stuff.

They just said "Free support for all MS platforms"

Self-publishing and dropping the fee for updates are things that MS should have done a long time ago, it only has come up now because of the beating they took in public perception and the fact their competition has been doing it for quite some time and have gotten a lot of positive buzz about it.

My entire stream of Build just died. I did nab this

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/06/27/build-conference/

Unity and MS are teaming up.

More

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/xbox-one-unity-announcement

I like Unity a lot but I am a bit surprised Microsoft, a company that has traditionally offered strong platform development tools, is ceding this to a third party. It is great that Unity works on XBox One, WinPhone 8 etc but unless I missed something from BUILD Microsoft isn't even bothering to release their own toolset for game development. It is probably for the best but it is still a surprising change.

Also I am wondering what they mean by "free of charge". Unity Pro certainly is not free and I expect developers will have to use an "app" on the XBox One to transfer and debug.

I wonder if they even considered retroactively going back and giving all the developers their money back for the updates.

Unity is still coming out for PS4, this just means if Microsoft publishes your game, you get to use Unity for free. I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing given the old news about Skulls of the Shogun.

Good.

Maybe if they were insane.

I was watching that because I heard a rumor Microsoft might be going self publish route. That was a disappointment. Unity license fee is 1500$ compare to Sony/Nintendo self publishing, this wont win them any favor from indie. How long do we have to wait until they back down on this? Are they content with just Below and Mine Craft? There is a reason indies are flocking to the other two console and I wonder how long they are going to be stubborn.

With the 180 turn, Microsoft is back in the game but if the other two consoles keep getting Bastion or Journey quality titles at some point the xbox will once again be the shooter box. Thank god for bastion on the 360, if not for that it would have gone untouched for the last 4 years in my house. I hope Microsoft announce it soon otherwise I don't need this next box. Not to mention think about publishing on it.

@shinjin977: a lot of people on gaf think self publishing will happen Ms just does not want to say it yet.

They have semi hinted at it with the app stuff.

@the_laughing_man: Yeah that will definitely happen. They have to.

Amazing. Microsoft is really on the right tracks now!

Hopefully they didn't burn too many developers over the years with this policy.

@the_laughing_man Thanks for the PR-update. BTW. Lisa at HR want to talk to you about something.