Support NeoGAF

[Wozman23]

I was talking about this in another thread. I think this is one area where Microsoft is now beating Sony.

Last generation, as a huge Sony fan, I loved the console exclusive indie games that Sony was incubating in Santa Monica or partnering with via the Pub Fund. The Velocity franchise, Sound Shapes, Journey, The Unfinished Swan, Guacamelee!, Papo & Yo, rain, the PixelJunk series - many of them were some of my favorite experiences of the generation.

Resogun, Velocity 2X, and Thumper have all been great this generation, and while I wasn't a fan of Bound, I'm glad it exists. But these partnerships seem to be dwindling, and the incubated Santa Monica projects, many of which had a three game deal, have either completed their obligation or quietly split.

Other than Housemarque's exclusive Matterfall, and Nex Machina, which is now coming to PC as well, I really don't know of many indies that seem to be priorities for Sony. They dropped RiME - for a solid reason - but it looks to have turned out well. They were the first to show of Tarsier's Hunger, a game which resurfaced as Little Nightmares through Bandai Namco. Lastly, Giant Sparrow's follow up to The Unfinished Swan, What Remains of Edith Finch, is published by Annapurna Interactive, seemingly abandoning the three game deal that Giant Sparrow was a part of.

In the meantime, Microsoft has quietly started to build some momentum with great games like Ori and the Blind Forest, and a sizeable amount of timed console exclusives like Inside, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, The Flame in the Flood, Rise & Shine, and Beyond Eyes. Signing the upcoming Cuphead was a brilliant deal. Hopefully Below pans out.

While Microsoft's AAA output often gets (deserved) criticism, they seem to be ramping up their indie presence, whereas Sony seems to be diminishing its role. That has me the most excited I've ever been for Microsoft.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

I do think he is doing his best to make Xbox great again. Sure he exaggerates a bit but the Spencer effect is still here.

No he's not but more indies are a good thing.

 

[W.S.]

Reality? Compare it to Xbox 360, the difference is night and day. If the indie situation is so much better now, why aren't we also seeing more tiny €1 games now?

Some of those XBLiG games (the better ones) have been re-released on XBL like Aqua Kitty UDX, Battle High 2 A+, & 1001 Spikes but there are a lot of other indy titles that are released weekly on XBL.

Just look at the new games section and you can wade through all the indy games: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/new/games/xbox. PS4 has on average a higher quantity of indies than XBO but if you compare the current the indy scene on XBL to 2013, 2014, & 2015 you'll see a very stark difference in volume.

 

[FinaruDensetsu]

Most Indies are coming out day and date on both consoles now so they are obviously doing something right.

 

[W.S.]

They're going to be publishing games on the Switch, so unless there was some weird legalese that Devolver took advantage of, it would be fairly safe to assume that any exclusivity period is at an end.

Cool, what are the odds of Hotline Miami 1 & 2, Titan Souls, Mother Russia Bleeds, & Talos Principle coming to XBO then?

 

[therealbigrich]

Not really a good sample.

It's only devs on the program, I'd be interested to hear from developers that MS rejected. Especially given that everyone on the program signed an NDA, where they likely agreed not to criticize the elements of the program that they don't like (such as the release date parity clause which still exists).

That didn't take long lol

 

[Fredrik]

Indie visibility and promoting on the Xbox platform is way down compared to last gen

This is very true, on 360 we had the Xbox Live Arcade menu for the bigger indie releases and Xbox Live Indies for the smaller self published $1 titles, at least for a while. I remember they lumped it all together later on though because indie devs said that their releases was a bit hidden when they were only seen in the Indies menu.
I'm currently at my phone, is there a way to navigate on the marketplace and sort for the newest cheapest games?

 

[Thats a Greay Area]

Maybe when you compare weekly releases on XBL and PSN.

I do. And I disagree.

Reality? Compare it to Xbox 360, the difference is night and day. If the indie situation is so much better now, why aren't we also seeing more tiny €1 games now?

No console has tiny $1 games at the moment. But MS did just open up a program for indies outside of ID@Xbox that should foster games of that size and they are currently the ONLY console maker doing it.

 

[Fredrik]

MS did just open up a program for indies outside of ID@Xbox that should foster games of that size and they are currently the ONLY console maker doing it.[/B]

That's good to hear!
Nintendo seems to pull some strings to get smaller titles too. The current situation with the Rime pricing and all has kind of left me sitting firmly at the fence for Switch indies though, they need to realize that they can't price smaller titles much higher than they're priced on mobile now that they're flirting with the mobile/portable crowd. I still remember when Cut the Rope came to 3DS and was priced much higher than on mobile. Not a good idea!

 

[Granjinha]

Cool, what are the odds of Hotline Miami 1 & 2, Titan Souls, Mother Russia Bleeds, & Talos Principle coming to XBO then?

I don't think they intend to port their older catalogue to XBO. The devs have moved on (well, with the exception of Mother Russia Bleeds, that's recent.)

 

[Thats a Greay Area]

That's good to hear!
Nintendo seems to pull some strings to get smaller titles too. The current situation with the Rime pricing and all has kind of left me sitting firmly at the fence for Switch indies though, they need to realize that they can't price smaller titles much higher than they're priced on mobile now that they're flirting with the mobile/portable crowd. I still remember when Cut the Rope came to 3DS and was priced much higher than on mobile. Not a good idea!

Nintendo seems to be cherry picking what indies get on the platform. And while games that do get on have the potential to do well, as normally happens on new hardware, I'm not sure how long it will last. As a consumer, I find the Switch to a pretty expensive ecosystem to get the full benefits of. A year from now I'd be interested to hear some indie developer experiences of going retail vs. staying download only.

 

[W.S.]

I don't think they intend to port their older catalogue to XBO. The devs have moved on (well, with the exception of Mother Russia Bleeds, that's recent.)

Well that sucks balls.

 

[SapientWolf]

I was talking about this in another thread. I think this is one area where Microsoft is now beating Sony.

Last generation, as a huge Sony fan, I loved the console exclusive indie games that Sony was incubating in Santa Monica or partnering with via the Pub Fund. The Velocity franchise, Sound Shapes, Journey, The Unfinished Swan, Guacamelee!, Papo & Yo, rain, the PixelJunk series - many of them were some of my favorite experiences of the generation.

Resogun, Velocity 2X, and Thumper have all been great this generation, and while I wasn't a fan of Bound, I'm glad it exists. But these partnerships seem to be dwindling, and the incubated Santa Monica projects, many of which had a three game deal, have either completed their obligation or quietly split.

Other than Housemarque's exclusive Matterfall, and Nex Machina, which is now coming to PC as well, I really don't know of many indies that seem to be priorities for Sony. They dropped RiME - for a solid reason - but it looks to have turned out well. They were the first to show of Tarsier's Hunger, a game which resurfaced as Little Nightmares through Bandai Namco. Lastly, Giant Sparrow's follow up to The Unfinished Swan, What Remains of Edith Finch, is published by Annapurna Interactive, seemingly abandoning the three game deal that Giant Sparrow was a part of.

In the meantime, Microsoft has quietly started to build some momentum with great games like Ori and the Blind Forest, and a sizeable amount of timed console exclusives like Inside, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, The Flame in the Flood, Rise & Shine, and Beyond Eyes. Signing the upcoming Cuphead was a brilliant deal. Hopefully Below pans out.

While Microsoft's AAA output often gets (deserved) criticism, they seem to be ramping up their indie presence, whereas Sony seems to be diminishing its role. That has me the most excited I've ever been for Microsoft.

I can't agree. Sony's indie exclusives have been hit or miss, quality-wise, but the company hasn't abandoned indies by any means.

Internally, Gravity Rush 2 had Sony's full backing, and Drawn Together will be out soon. Sony just gave Disc Jam a massive push by offering it for free on PS+ (which helped Rocket League), and they've rolled up Rain World into their Play Collective promotion starting this month. Sony gives indies more floor space than retail games at their show booth at conventions. Indie gaming always seems like an afterthought at Microsoft's booth. MS does not show up to IndieCade, even though Nintendo and Sony do.

Sony built momentum with their more indie friendly policies early in the gen, championed by Adam Boyes, and kept it going. MS is now playing catch up even though the 360 was the premiere console indie platform last gen. That crown now goes to the PS4. That is no one's fault but Microsoft's.

 

[Thats a Greay Area]

I can't agree. Sony's indie exclusives have been hit or miss, quality-wise, but the company hasn't abandoned indies by any means.

Internally, Gravity Rush 2 had Sony's full backing, and Drawn Together will be out soon. Sony just gave Disc Jam a massive push by offering it for free on PS+ (which helped Rocket League), and they've rolled up Rain World into their Play Collective promotion starting this month. Sony gives indies more floor space than retail games at their show booth at conventions. Indie gaming always seems like an afterthought at Microsoft's booth. MS does not show up to IndieCade, even though Nintendo and Sony do.

Sony built momentum with their more indie friendly policies early in the gen, championed by Adam Boyes, and kept it going. MS is now playing catch up even though the 360 was the premiere console indie platform last gen. That crown now goes to the PS4. That is no one's fault but Microsoft's.

Well said.

 

[LiquidSolid]

I was talking about this in another thread. I think this is one area where Microsoft is now beating Sony.

Last generation, as a huge Sony fan, I loved the console exclusive indie games that Sony was incubating in Santa Monica or partnering with via the Pub Fund. The Velocity franchise, Sound Shapes, Journey, The Unfinished Swan, Guacamelee!, Papo & Yo, rain, the PixelJunk series - many of them were some of my favorite experiences of the generation.

Resogun, Velocity 2X, and Thumper have all been great this generation, and while I wasn't a fan of Bound, I'm glad it exists. But these partnerships seem to be dwindling, and the incubated Santa Monica projects, many of which had a three game deal, have either completed their obligation or quietly split.

Other than Housemarque's exclusive Matterfall, and Nex Machina, which is now coming to PC as well, I really don't know of many indies that seem to be priorities for Sony. They dropped RiME - for a solid reason - but it looks to have turned out well. They were the first to show of Tarsier's Hunger, a game which resurfaced as Little Nightmares through Bandai Namco. Lastly, Giant Sparrow's follow up to The Unfinished Swan, What Remains of Edith Finch, is published by Annapurna Interactive, seemingly abandoning the three game deal that Giant Sparrow was a part of.

In the meantime, Microsoft has quietly started to build some momentum with great games like Ori and the Blind Forest, and a sizeable amount of timed console exclusives like Inside, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, The Flame in the Flood, Rise & Shine, and Beyond Eyes. Signing the upcoming Cuphead was a brilliant deal. Hopefully Below pans out.

While Microsoft's AAA output often gets (deserved) criticism, they seem to be ramping up their indie presence, whereas Sony seems to be diminishing its role. That has me the most excited I've ever been for Microsoft.

This shit again? Wasn't it already pointed out how bizarre your argument is in the Sony first party thread? You're compounding two completely different things:

1. Small scale first party games, like Sound Shapes, Journey, Rain, Resogun, Unfinished Swan and Bound on Sony's side and Ori on Microsoft's side. These are NOT indie games, they're fully funded and published by Sony/Microsoft just like the Uncharted's and Halo's they put out. And while, yes, Sony Santa Monica appear to have closed their external development team, dropping a couple of their games as a result, Sony still publishes a lot more of those kind of games than Microsoft and there's no indication they're going to stop completely. Just over the next few months they've got Starblood Arena, Farpoint and Drawn to Death coming out, with Matterfall and WiLD also announced, while Microsoft doesn't have any announced at the moment as far as I'm aware (though Ori 2 is a pretty obvious E3 announcement).

2. Moneyhatted indie games (and I don't say moneyhat as a negative, it's a huge help to those indie devs), like Guacamelee, Papo & Yo, Nex Machina. Velocity and Thumper on Sony's side, with Cuphead, Inside, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, The Flame in the Flood, Rise & Shine, Beyond Eyes and Below on Microsoft's side. They're all self-published but given funding/marketing assistance by Sony/Microsoft to help them get their games done and are timed exclusive (or, rarely, permanently console exclusive like Cuphead) in return.

Microsoft barely even does 1, so that's not even competitive, but as for 2, it's completely subjective. Personally, I think Microsoft's doing much better than they used to and definitely have some cool looking games signed that I'm looking forward to (specifically Below and Tacoma) but I'd argue they're still significantly behind. Just look at the situation right now, with Night in the Woods, Disc Jam and Everything having just come out on PS4 over the last few weeks and with Rain World, Cosmic Star Heroine, Full Throttle Remastered and What Remains of Edith Finch (which you complain about Sony dropping but still appears to at least be timed exclusive, if not fully console exclusive) coming over the next month. Like I said, it's subjective, so I'm sure there are some Xbox owners who aren't impressed by that lineup, but it's an incredible lineup for me.

Oh and Sony never showed Hunger. People assumed they were publishing it at first because they have history with Tarsier but it was made clear a day or two after the announcement that they had nothing to do with it.

 

[What A Time To Be Alive]

I think Microsoft are now in the same position Nintendo were in around a year ago. Granted, Nintendo aren't completely out of the red just yet - and we'll have to see how the Switch's first year/18 months will fair from a fully "indie dev" perspective - but it's about time Microsoft recognise the relevance, not to mention the good PR, this kind of thing will provide.

Sure, smaller indie titles won't exactly have consumers go out and buy Xbox's in their hundreds of thousands and the profit margins potentially won't be as grand as a Halo or a Forza will...and while I can understand the decision against from a purely business stand-point, Microsoft really do need some good positive news around about now. We're about to enter the company's own mid-cycle "refresh" with Scorpio and while it's obvious they'll use the big major 1st/2nd/3rd party AAA's to help push the hardware, from a software/catalog perspective, Xbox really does need to convince people about its support for smaller studios and the type of indie games that make PC a great platform, that have made PS4 a viable platform, that are starting to make the Switch a potentially good platform...and now need to do the same for Xbox.

The recent indie-only Direct was a good move by Nintendo and from the looks of it, I think they're starting to see the error of their Wii U days (but I could of course be completely wrong there). Microsoft need to take a page from both Nintendo and indeed Sony's books and realise that Xbox is - and should be - about more than just Halo/Gears/Forza. Great that stuff like State of Decay & Sea of Thieves is there for those that are interested, but Xbox needs to keep on at convincing us they see the great potential in supporting the indie community. And I'm not just talking about copying things like Early Access and giving it a shiny, slick Xbox branding; ID@Xbox like a lot of things has potential. I want to enjoy Xbox as a hub just as much as I enjoy a Sony-owned or Nintendo-owned community of hardware/software. But so far there's been very little to convince me Microsoft are not just expanding, but learning where their greatest pitfalls may be.

I understand where your coming from and I agree with you to an extent (Xbox is actually getting a lot of indie games right now. Only problem is they're getting them late as hell) but to compare Microsoft to Nintendo even in this current state is ridiculous.

 

[Granjinha]

Oh and Sony never showed Hunger. People assumed they were publishing it at first because they have history with Tarsier but it was made clear a day or two after the announcement that they had nothing to do with it.

Yeah i was going to correct that too. It's the same impression people have with Below (MS funded) and MS wasn't funding the game even when it was announced years ago

i will add Ashen to that guy's list. Looked pretty great and the dev said on twitter that it's still in active development.

 

[Wozman23]

I can't agree. Sony's indie exclusives have been hit or miss, quality-wise, but the company hasn't abandoned indies by any means.

Internally, Gravity Rush 2 had Sony's full backing, and Drawn Together will be out soon. Sony just gave Disc Jam a massive push by offering it for free on PS+ (which helped Rocket League), and they've rolled up Rain World into their Play Collective promotion starting this month. Sony gives indies more floor space than retail games at their show booth at conventions. Indie gaming always seems like an afterthought at Microsoft's booth. MS does not show up to IndieCade, even though Nintendo and Sony do.

Sony built momentum with their more indie friendly policies early in the gen, championed by Adam Boyes, and kept it going. MS is now playing catch up even though the 360 was the premiere console indie platform last gen. That crown now goes to the PS4. That is no one's fault but Microsoft's.

No doubt, Sony is still the place to go for indies. They have plenty of great third party indies and do give indies spotlight in conferences, on the store, and in PS+ offerings. I love that Snake Pass was not only pre-orderable, but it saved me a few bucks and already preloaded. I'm just more concerned with their relaxing of first party output as I really enjoyed that stuff.

I'm not saying Microsoft is on par yet, especially when it come to first party. Their first party is weak all around. But they seem to be in a similar place that Sony was last generation and I'm glad to see them moving in that direction and receiving praise for it. Great games should come from that, which can mutually benefit both developers and Microsoft.

This shit again? Wasn't it already pointed out how bizarre your argument is in the Sony first party thread? You're compounding two completely different things:

1. Small scale first party games, like Sound Shapes, Journey, Rain, Resogun, Unfinished Swan and Bound on Sony's side and Ori on Microsoft's side. These are NOT indie games

...

Oh and Sony never showed Hunger. People assumed they were publishing it at first because they have history with Tarsier but it was made clear a day or two after the announcement that they had nothing to do with it.

For one my view is bizarre because our definitions of indie are just different. To me there is no distinction between Resogun and some game self-published by one guy in his basement - they're both indie. I prioritize the first party because I've always gravitated toward first party titles whether AAA or indie.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure 'Hunger' was revealed at a Sony press conference, and seeing as how Tarsier had only made games for Sony, it would be easy to assume there was a collaboration there. No publisher was mentioned, but I also never saw any mention that Sony had no part of it. Plus the name change and re-reveal seemed a bit odd, even if the name change is for the better. Regardless, RiME is definitely an example of a game Sony severed ties with. I'm no businessman and don't know the specifics, but from the outside it looks as if they let The Last Guardian sit in development hell for an entire generation, but didn't see enough promise in RiME to give it a year or so.

In any case, I'm not here to argue about the semantics of the word indie, or start a console war. I just want more indie games, from more developers and more publishers, for more diversity in gaming. I hope both Microsoft and Sony continue with that mentality, and hope they see value in first party indies.

 

[SuperMega]

You had a 1 month 'timed' exclsuivity deal with Microsoft, correct? Do you mind sharing how such deals are negotiated? A lot of people find this kind of thing interesting.

Yes, we had a one month timed exclusive with MS.
It's a pretty straightforward process. They like your game, they offer you exclusivity in exchange of lots of marketing chances on social networks, event showings and key shop placement.
We have not been a megahit at all, but MS surely did what hey could to help our game out.
Super happy with their work. And the game still has a lot of life knowing that a lot of people have it on their wishlist waiting for a discount.