Microsoft corporate VP, Marc Whitten has released a statement detailing the company’s plans for self-publishing on the Xbox One.
“Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox LIVE. This means self-publishing. This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox LIVE. We’ll have more details on the program and the timeline at Gamescom in August.”
While the statement confirms that retail Xbox One consoles can be used as dev kits, Whitten has clarified to Polygon that the dev kit functionality will not be available at launch. “It’s how we architectured the [Xbox One],” he said. “But it won’t all be there at launch.”
Whitten said that Microsoft has a “roadmap,” but the company will roll out their support for indie development in phases which could include a beta, and also publicly discussing policies. When asked about when full support for indie development would be available, Whitten replied, “Think about it in that first year.”
Microsoft had previously stated that independent developers would need the backing of a publisher as games could not be self published on the Xbox One. This change of policy comes just a month after Microsoft’s DRM removal on the console.
(via Polygon)