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Microsoft Responds To Indie Ire
Xbox Live’s recent overhaul left some indie developers feeling displaced when their games moved from the standard game store to a new specialty shop section.
Microsoft provided a statement to Eurogamer on the subject, addressing the ire put up by indie developers.
"The intent of the Specialty Shops section was to provide access to marketplaces that focus on a specific type of content, with unique ways of sorting through that content. We wanted to give Xbox Live Indie Games that full marketplace experience and felt this was the best place to do it, alongside other popular channels like the Avatar Marketplace.”
The representative went on to say that the placement adjacent to the Avatar shop should increase visibility for indie titles, considering that Xbox Live members have customized their Avatar’s clothing more than 290 million times since the feature’s launch.
Search functionality has also been improved according to Microsoft, via both the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace and Xbox.com. Now users can search by top-rated, top-selling, and genre, increasing the search results from 20 games to 50 titles.
The next few months should reflect if the move has had any effect on indie sales.
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