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Fans of indie games will be disappointed if they hope to partake in their passion at the launch of Xbox One, Phil Harrison, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business in Europe, has told GamesIndustry.
Asked when indie games will begin to show up on Xbox One, Harrison said: “I don’t think we’re going to see things at launch. I don’t think it’s realistic to see a developer get the programme and build a game and get it into the market on November 22. It’s reasonable to expect in early 2014 we’ll start seeing the first games come through.”
That’s not because Xbox One’s ID@Xbox programme hasn’t proved popular.
“We’ve had an avalanche of interest from all corners of the globe,” said Harrison. “It’s what we expected but it’s great to see. Now we’re working through applications and creating that dialogue with developers.
“As we said at the time, we have phase one where we give away development kits and loan them to the teams that inevitably will have to pass some kind of a qualification to justify a limited number of dev kits being given to them. That process is ongoing. Eventually our goal is that every retail Xbox One console becomes a dev kit. And then we open up to the widest possible audience.”
Harrison revealed that “within hours it was hundreds” of applications and that he believes it’s now in the thousands.
Xbox One hits UK stores on November 22, priced £429.
Source: GamesIndustry
