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Microsoft to announce indie self-publishing, new certification process [Confirmed]

C

Cat Party

Member
Is this really a 180 on anything? I don't recall MS saying there would be no self publishing. But I could have easily missed it.
 
I

IHaveCandy

Banned
jim2011 said:
Let's be real, 99% of indie games won't require that kind of memory. Why? That's a ridiculous amount to ask for from people who casually play on their PC.

FACT: If they make a game that requires 7gb of ram to be free at all times, they have drastically reduced the amount of people that can play/buy it
Click to expand...

But they wouldn't actually have 3 GB to use. The OSes, Kinect, and other apps will be using that 3 GB of RAM.
 
E

Evolution_1ne

Banned
Kibbles said:
Can we go back to calling it the xbone? The 180 thing is just weird to type and say and hasn't been funny.
Click to expand...

but I bet typing 360 is perfectly fine, and it's not about being funny, it's about the truth, they are dismantling the entire foundation this platform was built on, it's the biggest "about face" in the history of gaming

Cat Party said:
Is this really a 180 on anything? I don't recall MS saying there would be no self publishing. But I could have easily missed it.
Click to expand...

here you go
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
JaggedSac said:
Given they are all x86, porting should be fairly straight forward between PC, PS4, and XBone. Which is a good thing for indie devs.




The 3GB won't be the issue for indie devs, the limited GPU and CPU resources from that OS that would be a problem.
Click to expand...

Isn't the gpu and cpu resources limited only when your app is running in snap mode or in the background?

If your app is full screen, there's no reason at all to keep these resources limited too, as there will be nothing using them.
 
C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
harSon said:
Making it so that retail Xbox One's can be transformed into a Dev Kit is pretty ingenious. Instead of loaning out a Dev Kit, you're basically forcing Indie Developers, should they want to develop for the Xbox One, to purchase an Xbox One. So they're getting a developer and a consumer in one clean swoop.
Click to expand...

...huh?

I don't know about most devs, but I never develop for a platform w/o buying the system first. There are bugs that can occur on retail systems that don't occur on debug kits.
 
R

Raymo

Member
jim2011 said:
Let's be real, 99% of indie games won't require that kind of memory. Why? That's a ridiculous amount to ask for from people who casually play on their PC.

FACT: If they make a game that requires 7gb of ram to be free at all times, they have drastically reduced the amount of people that can play/buy it
Click to expand...

I just stated 7GB because that's the PS4 amount. You say indie games won't use 7GB of memory...okay I agree. But... what about 4GB or 5GB? Those aren't unbelivable memory amounts for some indie games considering its for both Ram and Vram combined. I'm pretty sure The Witness on PS4 is already using more than 3GB of PS4's memory according to the creator's twitter. Porting that game will be difficult if he wants to self-publish with these restrictions.
 
B

Bazooka

Banned
I am happy to see Microsoft moving in the right direction for indie developer's. Hopefully they have a good way of getting the Great indie developers the attention they deserve.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
DBT85 said:
For one example, The Witness already uses over 5GB according to Blow. Though I have no idea who is publishing that.
Click to expand...

He was talking how having lots of ram allows him to just put his entire game there and never worry about loading or streaming, it's not how much the game requires to run.
 
D

DBT85

Member
shandy706 said:
5GB of RAM or Hard Drive Space?

Why in the world would it use 5GB RAM?
Click to expand...

CrunchinJelly said:
I'm sure the Witness will require 5GB RAM on iOS and PC...
Click to expand...

All I'm doing is passing on what Blow said.

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/343884810458128385

CUXCM3c.png
 
D

dancrane212

Member
If I can buy an indie game on Xbox One and get the Windows 8 version as a "crossbuy" then I'll bite. It'd be a pretty decent incentive.
 
Interfectum

Interfectum

Member
We've also been told, but cannot confirm, that every Xbox One unit can be converted to a debug console. Instead of specific hardware units, Microsoft can authorize a console ID to play pre-release code.
Click to expand...

I don't think one could emphasize how big of a deal this is if true. This could potentially mean the buy-in to become an indie XB1 dev is the cost of the consumer grade hardware plus prolly $100 dev license. That's pretty big if I'm reading this right.
 
R

Rulp

Member
We've also been told, but cannot confirm, that every Xbox One unit can be converted to a debug console. Instead of specific hardware units, Microsoft can authorize a console ID to play pre-release code. This is in line with information we've received about a new process for beta tests. They will be run via hardware provisioning on Xbox One, with the process reportedly to be enabled for up to 25,000 users per test at launch. Given the ability to provision for beta testing, the ability to enable retail hardware for pre-release code seems feasible.
Click to expand...

Now that is very interesting.
 
D

Delusibeta

Banned
Pillville said:
How is this different than XNA (Indie Games) on 360?
Seriously asking.
Click to expand...

Assuming this is Microsoft PR bullshit, nothing. Of course, it might be the case that it's actually self-publishing for "proper" Xbone games, but the "every retail Xbone is also a dev kit" points towards it actually being a PlayStation Mobile style solution (i.e. WinRT ghetto for indie devs and publishers controlling the Xbone Marketplace).
 
R

Raide

Member
iamvin22 said:
Haha.. Yea pretty much. As what others said, DRM policy will return because of this.
Click to expand...

It might for developers and it is bound to be linked with getting support and access to the tolls and regular updates. Seems like a good idea for developers and something that would benefit them as they progress through development.
 
T

Takuya

Banned
Interfectum said:
I don't think one could emphasize how big of a deal this is if true. This could potentially mean the buy-in to become an indie XB1 dev is the cost of the consumer grade hardware plus prolly $100 dev license. That's pretty big if I'm reading this right.
Click to expand...

It's not the same thing as a dev unit.
 
iamvin22

iamvin22

Industry Verified
chubigans said:
...huh?

I don't know about most devs, but I never develop for a platform w/o buying the system first. There are bugs that can occur on retail systems that don't occur on debug kits.
Click to expand...

This is true. On our games we would have about 2 bugs that occurred on devkits but couldn't repro on debug kits.
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Even if indie devs had only access to 1Gb of memory. That would be more then enough for any indie game. After all. Look at the games that only had access to less then 512Mb of memory for Xbox 360.

It's more then enough.
 
M

meppi

Member
I wish they would go all out and make. The 360 region free as well with the next firmware update. But that's probably too much to ask for at this point in time.
 
I

ironchair

Banned
jim2011 said:
Let's be real, 99% of indie games won't require that kind of memory. Why? That's a ridiculous amount to ask for from people who casually play on their PC.

FACT: If they make a game that requires 7gb of ram to be free at all times, they have drastically reduced the amount of people that can play/buy it
Click to expand...
Well, at least Outlast, one of the indie titles that will be a free PS+ downloadable on PS4, will be using UE4, so who knows, really? Might be worse if some indie devs feel held back by RAM limitations. I know one of the Dreamfall devs has already talked about the inferior hardware of the Wii U proving to be an obstacle.
 
A

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
cyberheater said:
Even if indie devs had only access to 1Gb of memory. That would be more then enough for any indie game. After all. Look at the games that only had access to less then 512Mb of memory for Xbox 360.

It's more then enough.
Click to expand...



Even if AAA devs had only access to 1Gb of memory. That would be more then enough for any AAA game. After all. Look at the games that only had access to less then 512Mb of memory for Xbox 360.

It's more then enough.



I mean...yeah, it's dumb. But so is what you said. Working with limitations always makes things harder. It also can lead to improvements and constraints can lead to things you wouldn't have needed to think of otherwise, but the "____ is enough memory" argument has been the end of a joke in computing for 3+ decades now.
 
N

NemesisPrime

Banned
We've also been told, but cannot confirm, that every Xbox One unit can be converted to a debug console
Click to expand...

Now that is a nice feature. Looking forward to next gen TBH.

This is great news. I hope the Kinect requirement being removed is the last big change to come before launch.
Click to expand...

Err... no. Kinect needs to stay in for Indies.
 
X

x3sphere

Member
Honestly, not being able to turn your retail unit into a dev one was a pure money grab for the most part in past generations. Nothing to do with security. The hacker community unlocked plenty of debug-only features on retail PS3 units, you can even install the firmware reserved for DEX units on retail.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
cyberheater said:
Even if indie devs had only access to 1Gb of memory. That would be more then enough for any indie game. After all. Look at the games that only had access to less then 512Mb of memory for Xbox 360.
Click to expand...
Any indie game?

Star Citizen, Warframe, War Thunder, Blacklight Retribution, Primal Carnage?
 
R

Raymo

Member
cuyahoga said:
This sounds like game size. The Witness is also coming to iOS, mind you.
Click to expand...

He is talking about memory. You can see he references the 8GB of ram. No one is saying the Witness an other games are now impossible on XBox One. It is just going to take more effort to get the games running on that system. A stupid obstacle because the Xbox One has 8gb of ram, but they are gimping these indies.
 
C

coma1138

Banned
It's probably a good thing in terms of them improving their PR. Other than that, I can't imagine caring about this. If any of the games were worth playing, I could just play them on my PC. Hopefully they keep the games separated.
 
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