With the next Xbox I am expecting the launch of XNA 5.0 Targeting DirectX 11.1
Right now XBLIG is nothing short of horrific.
Its saturated with "games" that in many cases are not games at all. But rather crappy "apps" that nobody will use.
Most of the "Games" on there that are actually games are poorly developed. Clones of existing games. ( cough minecraft like world-of-cubes )
And then there is the accessibility issue. Its a pain in the ass to navigate to the Indie games area.
If Microsoft wants the Indie games to do well they will need to massively ramp up the QA. Right now on Indie games, all your game/software needs to be approved for release is to be bug free and "finished" ( "finished" as in the developer's definition of "finished" )
So even if you develop a good game, it will be instantly buried under a massive pile of utter crap.
I can say that if the NextBox Indie system is good that I will be releasing games for it. But right now, there is zero incentive for anyone to focus on an XBLIG release.
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Edited by Domi 233: 3/12/2013 10:54:56 AMI have managed to find one gem out of the heap. That was Beat Hazard. But in order to do so, I had to make a new Gamer Profile based in the US, because the Indie Marketplace is not accessible in Australia. This was rather annoying and was only so I could download the free XBLA games (Harm's Way...) only available in the US. As such, I've not had major experience with the Indie Marketplace, aside from wondering why it's so difficult to access. From blind luck, the one game I did purchase turned out to be very good. Another annoyance, it seems that I need to be connected to Live in order to play indie games, why is this so (security)? So, I sure hope the indie marketplace is improved alot for 720. I feel it could certainly be a great feature if done right, to help bring devs up through the ranks (indie -> XBLA) and would stand out as a feature that I don't think the ps4 will have. QA is a more complicated issue that I'm not too sure how to handle (Community ratings - someone has to have bought the game to know what it's like/MS testers - could drive up the price of developing on the platform, but could be subsidised by players' XBL memberships).
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Edited by Felicia402: 3/11/2013 6:33:19 PMI've only seen a few on youtube and they look nothing more of a joke.