"I think without a doubt the indie console community would not exist as it does today if Xbox Live Arcade had been dropped after the original Xbox iteration."
- John Baez, co-founder of Castle Crashers studio The Behemoth believes that the current indie presence on consoles is all thanks to the rise of XBLA.
Baez reasons that neither Sony or Nintendo has managed to match Microsoft's support for indie developers, and that many studios have managed to find success on console as a direct result of the Xbox 360's downloadable content push over the last decade.
"No other console hardware manufacturer has had the success of downloadable games that XBLA has had," he noted, "and many smaller developers have shared in that success."
Of course, it's no wonder that Baez is in full support of XBLA, given that The Behemoth's Castle Crashershas sold more than 2 million copies via the Xbox 360's digital service.
I also think the similarities between 360 and PC architecture make it an ideal platform for indie developers who no doubt are mainly used to working on PC. Now that it's more clear how important this part of the market is, I'll be interested to see how developer friendly Playstation and Nintendo are with their new systems. It sounds like Nintendo's trying (who knows if they'll succeed?) and I'm sure Sony will do the same. Good for everyone I think!
Fun fact: XBLA was going to be disc based again (like it was for the original Xbox) but people fought to get it integrated into the dashboard for the 360. Best decision they ever made.
Well, I do appreciate the ease and (From what I've read/heard) straightforward development process of XBLA, but there still have been some negatives associated with it, and STEAM is also driving a lot of products forward. Not to mention PSN has born some of the most critically acclaimed small-team projects like Journey, Pixel Junk Series, and EveryDay Shooter. Each company has added there own imprint on the industry (Nintendo's new service is reportedly taken a page from Steam) and I would give credit to more than just XBLA, especially from a gamer's perspective.
