I morges skrev vi om Microsofts kovending i deres politik om indieudviklere, som har lettet mange begræsninger og vil gøre det muligt for indie-folkene selv at udgive deres spil på Xbox One. Den beslutning er blevet mødt med blandede omend forsigtigt optimistiske reaktioner fra indie-miljøet.
Dant Rambo fra Gaijin Games (dem med Bit.Trip) kalder det "great news", og siger i et interview med Polygon:
"One of the bigger things, being a developer and a consumer, is that it puts Sony and Microsoft on equal footing, in a lot of ways, which is always good because it forces them to have to compete even more for our money."
Kevin Dent, chef for Tiswaz Entertainment, viser også stor entusiasme og fortæller over for Polygon at det bliver meget billigere at udvikle spil, når man ikke behøver købe særskilte udviklerværktøjer.
"It's a no-brainer. I cannot stress enough how Microsoft has just lowered the barrier to entry developing on a console".
Mere forbeholden er Retro City Rampage-udvikleren Brian Provinciano:
"Make no mistake: while this is a great thing, it's again not the equivalent to what other platforms offer. On PS4, for example, developers can tap right into the system; use every bit of RAM and all of its power. Indies have access to everything that the AAA studios do, from platform support to development and release", siger han til Engadget.
Philip Tibitotski fra Young Horse Games arbejder i øjeblikket på Octodad: Dadliest Catch til PlayStation 4. Ligesom Brian Provinciano er han afventende, og vil se nøjagtigt hvordan Microsofts nye model ser ud.
"I want to be able to see the visual setup of the store and how they're going to be handling discoverability. They recently said everything would be in the same store, but how will that store be organized and what does it take to get banner space or notoriety?
"What are the technical requirements of this? Is there potential to interface with them on marketing and things of that nature? Or will you just be another app in the same way that things released on the iOS App Store can so easily be overlooked? I think it's a step in the right direction, but it's too early to know how large of a step", siger han til Engadget.