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No self-publishing for indie developers on Xbox One

Microsoft has said that it won't be changing the rules for the Xbox One: there's still no self publishing on Xbox Live Arcade.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia
Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.
Nic Healey

Independent games developers have had a lot of success stories lately, with titles such as Fez and Braid gaining numerous accolades from media and gamers alike.

(Credit: Microsoft)

However, indie devs have never been able to self-publish their titles to the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA); they've needed a publishing deal with either Microsoft Studios or a third-party publisher. This means more paperwork, less say in terms of release timing and pricing and also losing a cut of the profits from the title.

Matt Booty, general manager of Redmond Game Studios and Platforms, has told ShackNews that this won't be changing with the Xbox One in the foreseeable future.

Confirming that Microsoft will "continue to court developers in the ways that we have", Booty added, "I would also expect that for this new generation ... we're going to continue to explore new business models and new ways of surfacing content."

Both Nintendo and Sony allow for self-publishing on their networks, with Sony using the recent Games Developer Conference (GDC) to court indie devs for its upcoming PS4.

With indie games proving to be so popular at the moment, often producing innovative titles for a fraction of the AAA budget and price, this seems like a poor strategy for Microsoft to take, especially with its competitors fully on-board with the independent teams.