XBLA: Leaping Ahead, or Jumping the Shark?
GDC just wrapped up, and there’s a ton of indie gaming news. Some of the biggest is Microsoft’s two announcements for XBox Live Arcade.
First, Microsoft announced the XNA Community Arcade, which will allow games created using XNA to be distributed to XBox Live users. Previously, you could only share games you created with other users of XNA. More specifically, you could send the source code to your game to another person who also owned the $100 devkit, who could compile it on their PC and then deploy it on their XBox 360. Now, they’ve taken all that out of the equation. Details about the business model (How much can I charge? How much does MS get?) are still secret, so it’s tough to tell if we’ll see lots of quality content, or if it’ll just be a fun wayfor aspiring developers and students to learn the trade.
On the flip side, Microsoft also didn’t announce they’re nearly halving the royalties they pay on XBLA games. That’s right, didn’t announce: they’re not saying anything publicly, but it’s absolutely happening. The previously generous 70% is down to 35%-45%, with some exceptions (you’d better believe EA isn’t taking 35%). Many developers are understandably upset. What this massive change means depends on the specifics of other deals: will we see the good games go multiplatform, will XNA community take off, or will the only real profit potential be in shovelware ports?
Finally, Microsoft can’t be too happy that despite their superior online platform and larger software library, Sony seems to be getting at least as much press with a grad student’s project, a game about a shooting dot, and a tower defense game. If Microsoft’s given up on their internal selection process finding anything with more traction than a hallucinogenic giraffe, maybe they’ll try to take matters even more in-house. They’d better hope they can take action faster than their disastrous response to HD-DVD.