It’s growing increasingly difficult to label the PlayStation 4 as the ideal hub for indie gaming, as Microsoft’s Xbox One self-publishing indie program, ID@Xbox, grew exponentially today.
Sixty-five new members were added to the group, including Tony Hawk developer Robomodo, Limbo developer Playdead, and Castle Crashers creator The Behemoth.
Chris Charla, ID@Xbox’s program director, wrote on the Xbox Wire that the impressive addition of developers today brings the total enrolment in the program to over 200. Alongside today’s additions, previously confirmed members include Naughty Bear creator Behaviour Interactive and Crysis developer Crytek. Charla commended the long list of studios.
“Honestly, when I look at this list, all I can say is ‘wow.’ It’s incredibly humbling to see so many fantastic studios there supporting Xbox One,” Charla said.
Though the ID@Xbox games haven’t been released for the Xbox One, users won’t have to wait much longer, as Charla said the first titles to launch through the program are going through the certification now. He even hinted at Microsoft’s plan to “improve the creation process” for the program’s members, with the addition of new processes and tools. Updates about both the exact release date for games and the new additions are to come.
Microsoft has said previously that their long-term goal is to enable users to create their own work, and turn every Xbox One console into a development kit. With Charla talking about the improvement of the creation process, it seems the company’s vision is not far from becoming a reality. Once it does, one won’t be able to undermine the Xbox One’s ability to remain competitive with its Sony counterpart, despite the constant revulsion against the Xbox One’s higher price tag and the tiresome games-only-running-in-720p-nonsense that’s been filling up comment boxes lately.
In the end, users can look forward to a variety of games that will effectively reach the full breadth of gamers, who aren’t necessarily interested in the mainstream titles.
Below is a list of the 65 developers joining the ID@Xbox program today.
- 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
