From Playdead Studios to Zoe Mode, Microsoft has added an impressive array of some of the most hip and urban indie developers from around the gaming block.
The news comes courtesy of the Xbox NewsWire and was spotted early on by Total Xbox, detailing that over 60 (well, 65 to be exact) developers have joined the ID@Xbox independent design program, bringing the grand total to almost 200.
Chris Charla, program director for the ID@Xbox initiative, commented about the addition of all these hipster developers, saying...
It has been an exciting couple months for ID@Xbox," … "We created this program to make it easy for independent developers to bring their innovative ideas to Xbox One, and the response from the community continues to be amazing!"
Well they kind of needed this. I mean, I'm not saying they're in a desperate position, but their software situation is desperate. It's almost as desperate (but not quite) as the NRA handing out free Colt 920 AR-15 assault rifles just for signing up to protect your gun rights. Yeah, their members must be dropping like flies to all those angry-moms-against-violence.
On the upside, at least Microsoft is reeling in the kind of talent they need to make the Xbox pop, and right now the Xbox is locked down harder than a 90-year-old Walmart greeter with arthritis. They need to loosen up their software library and get more games of all varieties out there to as many gamers as possible.
As it stands, each month goes by and the Xbox One has a very shallow selection of games made available in comparison to all the great indies dropping for the PS4, from Outlast and Don't Starve, to Towerfall and Blacklight, the PlayStation 4 has a strong line-up of various games that appeal to every single demographic out there. And with games like Primal Carnage, Shadow Warrior and Starbound on the way, it's just looking like the PS4 will widen the gap with extremely high-quality titles throughout 2014.
Microsoft will roll out their first wave of indie titles this March, alongside Titanfall and the much-needed system patch. What these games will be and how they'll be delivered (outside of a digital distribution method) still remain to be seen. For now, though, you can check out the list of developers who have registered with the ID@Xbox program below.
Keep in mind that registering and releasing games are two completely different things, and some games may be prone to getting caught up in the release net due to Microsoft's parity clause, as reported by VG 24/7.
New ID@Xbox developers - 27th February 2014- 4gency- A Crowd of Monster- Alientrap Games- The Behemoth- BetaDwarf- Big Ant Studios- Bloober Team- Blowfish Studios- Brain in a Jar- Brushfire Games- Cherry Pop Games Ltd- Codeglue- Code-Monkeys- Compulsion Games- Crunching Koalas- Deco Digital- Empty Clip Studios- Escalation Studios- EXOR Studios- FarSight Studios- Fatshark- Flix Interactive- Four Door Lemon Ltd- Frambosa- Frima- Glass Bottom Games- HB Studios- Headup Games- Heart Machine- Holmade Games- Humble Hearts LLC- I Fight Bears- Implausible Industries- Iridium Studios- iSquared Games Ltd- Larian Studios- Mediatonic- MeinMein- Mighty Rabbit Studios- Mimimi Productions- nDreams Ltd- NeocoreGames- No Goblin- n-Space- Piwot- Pixel Balloon- Playdead- Rebellion- Relentless Software- RetroCoders- Ripstone- Robomodo- Ska Studios- Smudged Cat Games Ltd- Snowrunner- Spry Fox- Tiny Castle Studios- Toxic Games- Vector Unit- Vertigo Games BV- VooFoo Studios- Warhorse Studios- WaterMelon- Xona Games- Zoë Mode
