This week’s Xbox 360 dashboard update brought long-expected new functionality to the console. User interfaces were polished and streamlined, new features were added, and parts of the Xbox Live service were made more accessible. One area of the platform that received a significant step backwards was the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) channel. An experimental service by Microsoft, XBLIG allowed any indie developer with $100 a year to create and publish console games for the Xbox 360.
As of the most recent dashboard update, the XBLIG channel has been moved out of the Games Marketplace and stashed as a “Specialty Store” along with other unsuccessful experiments such as the Game Room platform and standalone music game stores. Furthermore, Microsoft removed box art, screenshots, and descriptions from the menus of these games after they are downloaded, removing their appeal as games and making them appear similar to an MP3 audio file. In addition, Indie Games no longer appear in the Games Marketplace’s condensed A-Z list of all games. It’s clear that the future of the service is bleak, if Microsoft hasn’t given up on it entirely. This postmortem seeks to analyze the causes of the failure of this particular project, particularly in light of the successes of other independent development stores on other platforms.
Comments
Post a Comment