Microsoft: Xbox One Will Support Indie Developers

Microsoft’s Don Mattrick has promised that the Xbox One will support independant developers.

His vow comes after last week’s news that the freshly announced next gen console would not allow indies to self-publish their games – something that Sony and Nintendo allow on the PS4 and Wii U.

Mattrick told Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo:

“We’re going to have an independent creator program. We’re going to sponsor it. We’re going to give people tools. We’re going to give more information. That is something we think—I think—is important. That’s how I started in the industry. There’s no way we’re going to build a box that doesn’t support that.”

Despite what he says the fact remains that Microsoft’s new console won’t allow indie developers to do something that is both beneficial to them and that they can do on rival consoles.

One of the things the current console generation will be remembered for as it nears its end will be the rise of indie development, something that Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade did most to encourage with games like Braid, Limbo and more recently the console version of Minecraft.

It’s easy to imagine indie devs flocking to Nintendo and particularly Sony, who have been wooing the indie scene for a long time now.