A few days ago on Microsoft’s blogs, it was announced that XNA Creator’s Club and Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) on Xbox 360 would be shutting down. This process will take about 2 years, 2017 being the end of the XBLIG marketplace. The long time frame is to ensure that the shutting down process is as smooth as possible to minimize any impact on developers that are still working on XBLIG games for Xbox 360. The ID@Xbox program on Xbox One is the next step is Microsoft’s commitment to indie games and is XBLIG’s successor in many ways even though it’s on a next-generation console.
Microsoft stated in the announcement:
• As of today, we’ve stop taking new subscriptions or membership renewals, but we’ll ensure that current members who are still working on games have any memberships that expire topped off until September 9, 2016. After that date we’ll no longer allow new games to be published. All creators with a valid subscription as of today will receive a free lifetime Windows Developer account (normally $99).
• In September 2017, we’ll stop selling XBLIG games, close the store and pay out all money earned by developers. Of course, players will still be able to re-download games they own and continue to play the games they own.
• Longer term, over the next two years, we’ll be working with game conservationists and creators to preserve the legacy of XBLIG content. We look forward to sharing more details in the future.
For those new on the Xbox community may not know what Xbox Live Indie Games is but I’m certain that have already heard about ID@Xbox and they are pretty much the same thing, the difference is that XBLIG was created for Xbox 360 games and the ID@Xbox for Xbox One and Window 10 games.
The new ID@Xbox program already counts more that 1000 developers creating indie games for Xbox One and Windows 10, and all have received two kits, one that gives them access to Xbox One and Xbox Live components such as Kinect and SmartGlass, and the other a subscription to the Unity game engine.
It’s good to see Microsoft focusing on indie games on Xbox One and putting all of its resources behind that rather than maintaining an old program.
João is a games journalist, Senior Editor at XDA Developers. They contributed 156 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: previously reported for Neowin before joining XDA Developers in 2021, where he leads coverage of Windows, Microsoft, and hardware.