General Gaming News

Xbox Live Indie Games Service Shutting Down

Xbox One

After seven years, the Indie focused platform for the Xbox 360 is closing it’s doors. The full wind down process will take place over the next two years.Effective today, developers cannot purchase or renew annual memberships in the program, though active developers may continue building their games until a year from now, Sept. 9, 2016. On that date, all publishing to the Indie Games Marketplace on Xbox 360 will cease.

For consumers, games on the Indie Marketplace still will be available for purchase until it closes “around September 2017.” Then, “around November 2017,” Microsoft will issue a final payment to all indie game participants for their wares, whether they meet the $150 minimum payment threshold or not.

XBL Indie games debuted with a massive push focused on pulling indie devs in with promises of a sustained platform to market their games. With a total of more than 3,300 games in the service, some were bound to see success. Games like FortressCraft and Avatar Golf stand out as some of the major success stories on the platform.

The XNA tool supporting development on Xbox Live Indie Games was discontinued in 2013 and the service has no presence on the Xbox One. On that console, Microsoft’s indie outreach has been replaced by the ID@Xbox program, a more formal and managed approach to finding, publishing and promoting independent games.

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