Re:Indie developers cannot self-publish on Xbox One
by noct on Wednesday May 22, 2013 @02:21PM
(#5752767)
Rebuilt from the core isn't very specific; the architecture has switched from PowerPC to x86. There are some solutions (emulation, secondary chipset), but none that aren't difficult and expensive.
As XNA is .NET based, they would only need to port the runtime libraries to the new native APIs.
They dropped support for the only SDK they offered that produced forward-compatible games.
Unless they announce a new form of XBLIG, the only way for indies to release games for the One will be via a publisher, and even with a distribution-only deal, it means MS is effectively enforcing a tax on indies that's paid out to AAAs.
Re:Indie developers cannot self-publish on Xbox One
by stonemetal on Wednesday May 22, 2013 @02:26PM
(#5752801)
XNA is .net based, so as long as the new box has a .net runtime it should work just fine. The only downside is XNA is very old Graphics wise (dx9 based I think).
"[..] Microsoft has confirmed that it will release no new versions of its XNA game development toolset, which all Xbox Live Indie Games are developed in."
The system is not backwards compatible, because it apparently is a rebuild from the very core. The old code that drove previous games will not run on the new system, and anything being written for it must be written or ported to whatever the new languages and requirements are.
If they don't publish an update to the toolkit that lets indie developers write for the system, doesn't that essentially mean there can't be any indie development for the system? It looks like they're basically saying we'll keep things just as locked down as they used to be, oh and also we won't be providing the necessary tool to even begin working on our system. (Unless they intend to release a new dev-kit and just didn't see any reason to note that?)