Describing the controversial parity clause for independent studios signing up to ID@Xbox, Phil Spencer emphasised to TiC Podcast that this wasn’t to screw developers over (shock horror), but it is in-fact to prevent a mentality amongst developers that Xbox One is a second class audience due to market share.
“…I’ll be honest, the thing I worry about is I look at all the people who buy an Xbox, who invest their time and their money in Xbox One, and as millions of people own Xbox One I want people to feel like they’re first class, because they are.”
Phil Spencer also stated that there will of course be exceptions to this rule due to developmental reasons, and that he invites developers to have a conversation with him about the difficulties they face when tasked with achieving launch parity.
“That said, I have a lot of friends who run small indie studios, and I get that time lines around done, or 3 games, 4 games depending on how many platforms they’re supporting. So I always just say let’s have a conversation and it’s worked. I think we’ve done a good job working with the indies that had strict parity concerns.”
I think this speaks volumes over specific games such as Outlast and Abe’s Oddysee: New n’ Tasty, where perhaps a game’s quality has outshone the need for launch parity. I think primarily its about setting a precedent, if the parity clause is removed, then devs will obviously hit the larger market share console first without a second thought.
“I want Xbox to feel like a first class citizen when an indie game launches.”
Be sure to check out TiC’s interview here, and let us know below: Do you agree with Phil Spencer’s approach? Or would you rather get indies months or years later than not at all?
Jez C is a games journalist, Executive Editor at Windows Central. They contributed 16 articles to ICXM between 2014–2015, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: an early Jez Corden byline before he joined Future plc’s Windows Central as Executive Editor.