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Press Play: Microsoft wants "unique", "weird" indie games for Xbox Live

Funny people shitting on Microsoft and their relation with indies when they've been the first to welcome them to their platform and it has been a constant flow of great indie games + those summer arcade stuff.

Sony has just recently started to promote themselves with indies and are trying to get as much positive buzz as possible before the launch of PS4. I admire their effort but i think we may have some great surprises coming from MS and XBLA.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Funny people shitting on Microsoft and their relation with indies when they've been the first to welcome them to their platform and it has been a constant flow of great indie games + those summer arcade stuff.

Nobody is retroactively shitting on the work MS did from 2004-2008 or so. They're complaining about the increasing professionalization of the service (including Summer of Arcade), MS' failure to respond to many and mounting complaints by independent devs, and the faster growth and better engagement of other platforms since then.

I don't think MS has by any means given up on independent developers, but it's not like people are making things up out of thin air.
 
Microsoft

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Nobody is retroactively shitting on the work MS did from 2004-2008 or so. They're complaining about the increasing professionalization of the service (including Summer of Arcade), MS' failure to respond to many and mounting complaints by independent devs, and the faster growth and better engagement of other platforms since then.

I don't think MS has by any means given up on independent developers, but it's not like people are making things up out of thin air.

I don't know. I think rarely a month goes by when there isn't at least one XBLA game that I am interested in. I think maybe the games coming out for these consoles in general has slowed down over the last year or so, but MS had a great 2012 with games like Fez, Mark of the Ninja and especially Minecraft. Maybe not every great indie game that comes to the service is exclusive to it, but the sure get the lions share of most of the great ones.
 

Melchiah

Member
Funny people shitting on Microsoft and their relation with indies when they've been the first to welcome them to their platform and it has been a constant flow of great indie games + those summer arcade stuff.

Sony has just recently started to promote themselves with indies and are trying to get as much positive buzz as possible before the launch of PS4. I admire their effort but i think we may have some great surprises coming from MS and XBLA.

The PS1 already had Net Yaroze, and the demo discs of Official PlayStation Magazine featured a couple/handful of indie games every month.
 
Bold endeavor, but no matter how hard they try, Sony could always wildly out-weird their games by breaking out a bit of Keita Takahashi.
 

Noogy

Member
I believe it. The XBLA team has always been open to unique ideas. Heck, they let me make a crazy game where talking animals hit each other with massive swords and food pops out.

While I don't think we'll see much indie talk during the 21st reveal (it's only an hour long), I'm hoping for some interesting news leading through E3.
 

Replicant

Member
You're thinking of SEGA. A fish with a human face who you talk to with a mic. They should talk to those guys instead.

That was then. These days SEGA only make Sonic and Yakuza games. But maybe MS is in the market for Pachinko slot games? Because SEGA does that too.
 

Conor 419

Banned
Incompetent Microsoft don't have the management talent to recognise the virtue of these types of games. Their idea of weird and wacky is a first person shooter not copying CoD.
 
I believe it. The XBLA team has always been open to unique ideas. Heck, they let me make a crazy game where talking animals hit each other with massive swords and food pops out.

While I don't think we'll see much indie talk during the 21st reveal (it's only an hour long), I'm hoping for some interesting news leading through E3.

No offence but your game isn't particularly weird, it harks back to a lot of classic Japanese games.

To be honest, there are a lot of good games on the service but I can't think of one game I'd consider weird on XBLA, certainly nothing on par with NobyNoby Boy or Tokyo Jungle or Datura or even flOw. When I think of XBLA I think of 2D action/platformers with some quirky mechanic or MineCraft. Certainly Press Play's efforts so far are anything but weird. What are some weird games on XBLA?
 

danwarb

Member
Incompetent Microsoft don't have the management talent to recognise the virtue of these types of games. Their idea of weird and wacky is a first person shooter not copying CoD.
But if they're indie games, do they even have to? People will buy good weird games and these will be the popular weird games. Push them.

Just make it easier to publish if this is currently a problem. And give us a better way to check games out without having to download every trial, like better descriptions or videos. Or let us filter by type, unless I missed that. There are like 3000 games there and most are probably not great.
 

Margalis

Banned
First party indie games.

Ha ha yep. MS wants indie games so they bought a small studio. Huh?

Buying small studios is an extremely inefficient way of getting indie game support and runs counter to the nature of being independent.

I don't think it's worthwhile to quibble over exactly what being independent means, but it sure as hell doesn't mean being owned by MS.
 

Calvarok

Banned
So they want more Japanese games then?

Japanese games are not always unique.

That's why there's a generic image that popped into your head when you typed "Japanese games".

But yeah, I've heard that developing for microsoft will be easier with the new console enabling easy pc-console ports.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
What are some weird games on XBLA?

Schizoid is pretty weird. Kinect Party / Double Fine Happy Action Theatre. Haunt. Space Giraffe. Fez, but it has a pretty sellable veneer so I don't think the weirdness of the game really impacts its presence on the market. Not sure what else I'd consider weird. Leadmees, although I didn't particularly enjoy that. Hole in the Wall. Actually a lot of the Kinect stuff is weird, which I guess is similar to how Move is used for more experimental stuff too.
 
XBLI has so much games that it's hard to find the good ones, XBLA has pretty good ones too tons of options although i'd love to see creature 4 on the next generation ps4/xbox
 
I believe it. The XBLA team has always been open to unique ideas. Heck, they let me make a crazy game where talking animals hit each other with massive swords and food pops out.

While I don't think we'll see much indie talk during the 21st reveal (it's only an hour long), I'm hoping for some interesting news leading through E3.
My wife thinks I'm crazy for playing your game. I don't care. I love it.
 
Ha ha yep. MS wants indie games so they bought a small studio. Huh?

Buying small studios is an extremely inefficient way of getting indie game support and runs counter to the nature of being independent.

I don't think it's worthwhile to quibble over exactly what being independent means, but it sure as hell doesn't mean being owned by MS.

You can always help that studio to grow when is under your umbrella. Less risk of failing on the long term.
 

abadguy

Banned
By "unique" and "weird", do they mean a game that is not a generic boom feat shooter like so many Xbox games are?

Wat?

Viva Piñata says you're wrong.

As does Lococycle

You're thinking of SEGA. A fish with a human face who you talk to with a mic. They should talk to those guys instead.


That was the weirdest game I could think of.

Yeah the Sega of old was pretty much the first name in unique experiences. Jet Set Radio, Samba De Amigo, Space Channel 5, Rez, Panzer Dragoon series , Burning Rangers ,etc.
 
Schizoid is pretty weird. Kinect Party / Double Fine Happy Action Theatre. Haunt. Space Giraffe. Fez, but it has a pretty sellable veneer so I don't think the weirdness of the game really impacts its presence on the market. Not sure what else I'd consider weird. Leadmees, although I didn't particularly enjoy that. Hole in the Wall. Actually a lot of the Kinect stuff is weird, which I guess is similar to how Move is used for more experimental stuff too.

Death by Cube, Geon: Emotions, Every Extend Extra Extreme, and Boom Boom Rocket, to add a few more.
 
Schizoid is pretty weird. Kinect Party / Double Fine Happy Action Theatre. Haunt. Space Giraffe. Fez, but it has a pretty sellable veneer so I don't think the weirdness of the game really impacts its presence on the market. Not sure what else I'd consider weird. Leadmees, although I didn't particularly enjoy that. Hole in the Wall. Actually a lot of the Kinect stuff is weird, which I guess is similar to how Move is used for more experimental stuff too.

Yeah I guess Space Giraffe and Rez are weird, though those types of games are not that unique anymore with the likes of Child of Eden and Dyad joining the scene.

The others not so much. Kinect Party, Happy Action Theatre, Hole in the Wall are gimmicky party mini games, akin to Move's Start the Party more than the experimentalism of Datura. The OXM review for KP reads, "Its giddy, family-friendly spirit makes Kinect Party a perfect game for adults and kids alike..." You call that weird? Haunt also was developed as a game for kids and looks like something Disney would do.

Fez is not weird, it's a clever puzzle platformer with a quirky mechanic.

The entire Twisted Pixel catalog of games.

I don't really think they are weird either. I see the Splosion games and they look like your standard action platformers with that quirky gimmick again. Lococycle is shaping up to maybe fit the bill, but weird is something like NobyNoby Boy. I mean read this:

The player takes control of a worm-like quadrupedal character referred to as BOY.[5] Using the controller, the left analog stick moves the front of Boy while the right stick controls the back. By moving both ends in opposite directions, the player can stretch Boy's abdomen to great lengths. The player may maneuver Boy around its environment, interacting with stationary objects like houses, or AI-controlled characters such as barnyard animals.
 
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