Microsoft’s ID@Xbox indie development program for the Xbox One may be a vast improvement over the company’s initial stance – which represented a big middle finger to self publishing – but the company has come under fire from indie devs for its launch parity clause in the same.
Xbox vice president Phil Harrison spoke about the same to EDGE stating that, “Taking aside competitive positioning and all of that, the winners in all of this are game players. There are more games coming out for these platforms, there are more developers creating for these platforms, there are more fresh minds coming into our industry than any time in recent memory. And that’s so, so important to the future of our industry.”
Could the parity clause be removed in the near future? “It’s difficult to debate these kind of commercial relationships in a media interview so you’ll forgive me for not going into the details. What I would say is that everybody in our program, whether it’s a developer or people on the platform side working with Chris [Charla, ID@Xbox boss] is committed to making sure the best games are on Xbox One.
“That’s our job, basically, if you boil it all down to the essence of what a game platform is, it’s to make sure that the biggest, best, most exciting, most creative games are on your platform and we are working super hard to make that happen.”
Do you think the parity clause should be repealed in the coming months? Let us know in the comments.
