I think there does need to be a level of quality for digital stores on consoles. It would be fine if MS opened a "games lab" where consumers know it has a bunch of small apps and games that aren't quality tested. But I don't think it's right for something like, say, Forza 5 vying for position on the charts against four massage apps.
I don't think there should be a quality requirement. Yes, it leads to some undesirable signal:noise ratios, but I said it years ago when Community Games was first touted and I stick to it now, that if you remove the floor for content, you also remove the ceiling. You never know where that diamond in the rough will come from and I think laying open the publishing rules to be as lenient as possible is a gain rather than a loss.
Maybe Forza 5 shouldn't be wrestling with massage apps... but if people are buying massage apps over Forza 5, why should it earn it's crust on IP alone? The only thing that needs to happen is a concerted effort to highlight the quality titles the come forth. Not step on and eradicate the junk from happening in the first place.
Saying you don't want games from devs who aren't ready for the big leagues is a really disappointing thing to read. Most of the top flight developers today started their coding lives when there weren't even leagues to be big in. Literal bedroom coders larking around, toying with print commands and poking at hex colour charts. That's how you start growing and if you're able to see a return (meagre as it might be) on your experimentation, it will inevitably push some to indulge their passion more and that's how you unearth the next generation of developers.
Also I see people even whining about "power" that they won't get like XBLIG
which doesn't make sense either considering you had to run everything in managed code anyways.
As one of the people who has bemoaned this specific aspect (and having published to XBLIG myself with a fond view of the experience, it can hardly be claimed I'm taking potshots at it), it's less to do with the potential it'll lead for games which, as demonstrated above, is still far above what a lot of portable devices can currently chalk together... which in turn matches the ambition of a lot of PC indie devs (Frozen Synapse in the latest Android Humble Bundle is a godsend). The actual level of grunt that indies have to work with will be plenty. The problem, as it often seems to be with Microsoft, will be one of perception. When you've got cases like Blow harping on about wrestling to contain his vision within the confines of the entire PS4 powerhouse, people are going to look at Windows Store publishing in the hemmed off part of the system as the backwards cousin of Indie gaming. Perception trumps reality in these matters and it's really rather silly.
