After Sony revealed that an early access program for PS4 was being heavily discussed, ID@Xbox boss Chris Charla told Develop that several developers were asking about the same program for the Xbox One.
“When we talk about Early Access, it typically means a game that you buy and it evolves over time to become 1.0, so you’re buying it before it’s 1.0. Minecraft on PC is a perfect example. It’s something developers have been asking for, and we are listening really closely to developers, but I don’t have anything to announce on that right now.”
Steam has been the biggest pioneer with its Early Access program that allows users to pay money and participate in testing games still in the alpha stage. It’s significantly different from the Xbox One and PS4 line-up since these are mostly indie titles like DayZ, Rust and so on. There’s also been plenty of criticism for these games since they ask substantial cash and deliver an unfinished product.
Charla added that, “It’s a really interesting issue with digital marketplaces, and it’s something our store and marketplace team think about all the time. There’s a lot of heavy deep thinkers, experts, PhDs working on these problems at Xbox every day – not just for the Xbox store, but for Windows Store and Windows Phone. Our goal is to have a rational marketplace, where good games are visible and sell well.”
We’ll see how that ultimately pans out for the newest generation of gaming.