Even after announcing a 180 degree turn on its upcoming used gaming policies, Xbox has continued to fall behind in popularity with both gamers and developers due to Microsoft’s – arguably greedy – business practices. In an effort to appease developers and keep up, Microsoft has decided to stop charging developers to update their games.
Previously, developers had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to update/patch their games post launch on Xbox. This has pushed many developers more towards Sony, since the Playstation 3, and upcoming PS4, don’t charge developers to patch their games – or at least don’t charge nearly as much.
The reason Microsoft charges developers for updates, at least according to Microsoft, is to discourage them from publishing unfinished projects and simply patching them later. It sounds like a good reason, but what Microsoft was charging companies tended to lean toward the astronomical end of the spectrum – in my opinion anyway.
Microsoft will still reserve the right to charge developers who excessively make update requests, but will longer charge a flat rate. Could this lead to a new beginning of indie games for Xbox? Will more triple-A titles take better care of their games post-launch now?
What do you think?
Source – IGN
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