The Xbox Game Preview, Microsoft’s Early Access style program which allows players to try out Xbox One titles that are still in development, will include first party titles one day according to publishing head Shannon Loftis in an interview with Kotaku.
“I can’t make any announcements about first-party games we’re going to put in Preview but typically at this point, given the way games development’s going, and the complexity of the systems, it is very important to us the consumer goes along with us the whole way.
“Game development itself has evolved in the last two, three, four years. It’s become far more community driven and far more incremental. This is a way to extend the beta experience and also support development a little in the process.”
There’s been a “huge amount of uptake” with the service thus and Loftis admitted that, “We’ve had a bit of a mad rush from the development community.”
Such a program for first party titles will be interesting since it could potentially replace beta periods for games like Halo 5: Guardians and allow round the year testing for players. Of course, it’s ultimately up to Microsoft as to which games will be on Xbox Game Preview so we’ll have to wait and see how this pans out.
