A number of independent developers are not launching their games on the Xbox One for a number of reasons. Although the indie situation on the Xbox One has seen major improvements ever since the ID@Xbox Policy, a few developers still prefer to launch their games on the PS4 first.
One such developer is Michael Frauenhofer, the man behind One Way Trip, a game in which the entire nation has only six hours left to live due to a mass attack on the water supply. The reasons for the lack of an Xbox One version is pretty simple. They are essentially a two man team and do not have the resources to work on more platforms.
“We were initially targeting One Way Trip for PC/Mac while we explored our options as far as bringing it to consoles, but as a tiny two-person team, we also wanted to be aware of our limitations and not spread ourselves too thin on too many platforms if that meant the game quality would suffer,” Michael said to GamingBolt.
“Given our relative lack of resources, once we realized releasing on both PlayStation 4 and Vita would be possible, we decided to focus all of our efforts for the time being on making the best, most polished game we could for those two systems at launch, and then expanding our reach from there as much as possible! So we see no reason for One Way Trip to not eventually come to any platform where there’s an audience that would want it, but two platforms was really all we thought we could handle at once,” he added.
Michael also shared his thoughts on the efforts of people like Shahid Kamal and Shuhei Yoshida in the indie development scene and how they are helping the lesser known developers to showcase their talents.
“I think the efforts of Sony’s teams in bringing over indies have been hugely positive for both Sony platforms and the industry as a whole. There’s no question at this point that good games can compete and succeed on console no matter the size of the team behind them, so more good games can only be good for consumers, and as a developer you always want the biggest and best platform possible for your games, so we’re super excited to be able to put out a game for PlayStation.”
“Even allowing that kind of access to release on a platform alone is so amazing, but beyond that, Sony has been incredible with helping indie developers get eyes on their game, from things like bringing developers to shows to retail kiosks or the PlayStation Blog. It’s always great to see a huge company use their platform and reach to help smaller art-focused developers and make good money doing it.”
One Way Trip is due for the PS4 and the Vita somtime this year. To know more about the game, check out the video below. Stay tuned for more news and updates.
