After single-handedly kickstarting the movement to bring indie developers to the console space with the Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft seriously dropped the ball with their attempts at indie outreach on the Xbox One. Initially, indie developers were expected to partner with an established publisher to bring their games to the next-generation console. In 2005, this was a reasonable policy. But with Sony and Nintendo’s more open approach to indie developers in recent years, Microsoft has to change. So last year, they removed the publisher requirement and allowed indie developers to self-publish their games on the Xbox One through the ID@Xbox program. The first ID@Xbox games should be released over the next few weeks, but Microsoft has no plans to stop there.
Today, the consolemaker confirmed that over 200 developers have signed up to be a part of the ID@Xbox program. In recent days, 65 indie developers have received Xbox One development kits and the list includes some big names. The Behemoth (of Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, and BattleBlock Theater fame) leads the way and I cannot wait to see what they have in store for the Xbox One.
A few other big names stand out including FarSight Studios (makers of The Pinball Arcade), Heart Machine (who are currently working on Hyper Light Drifter), Humble Hearts (the team behind Dust: An Elysian Tail), Playdead (the developers of Limbo), and Ska Studios (who created the recent Charlie Murder). The complete list of all 65 indie developers recently added to the ID@Xbox program can be found after the break.
- 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
- Codeglue
- Code-Monkeys
- Compulsion Games
- Crunching Koalas
- Deco Digital
- Empty Clip Studios
- Escalation Studios
- EXOR Studios
- FarSight Studios
- Fatshark
- Flix Interactive
- Four Door Lemon
- Frambosa
- Frima
- Glass Bottom Games
- HB Studios
- Headup Games
- Heart Machine
- Holmade Games
- Humble Hearts
- I Fight Bears
- Implausible Industries
- Iridium Studios
- iSquared Games
- Larian Studios
- Mediatonic
- MeinMein
- Mighty Rabbit Studios
- Mimimi Productions
- n-Space
- nDreams
- NeocoreGames
- No Goblin
- Piwot
- Pixel Balloon
- Playdead
- Rebellion
- Relentless Software
- RetroCoders
- Ripstone
- Robomodo
- Ska Studios
- Smudged Cat Games
- Snowrunner
- Spry Fox
- Tiny Castle Studios
- Toxic Games
- Vector Unit
- Vertigo Games
- VooFoo Studios
- Warhorse Studios
- WaterMelon
- Xona Games
- Zoë Mode
