It appears that in addition to self-publishing coming to Microsoft's Xbox One, the outgoing Xbox 360 will also accommodate self-publishing through Xbox Live Arcade, as early as next month.
Newsbrief: It appears that in addition to self-publishing coming to Microsoft's Xbox One, the outgoing Xbox 360 will also accommodate self-publishing through Xbox Live Arcade, as early as next month. The revelation comes via FarSight Studios, which announced that with the changes it would be bringing its title Pinball Arcade back to Xbox 360, sans publisher. Here is the full statement (emphasis added in bold):
As many of our fans have noticed, the Xbox 360 version of the Pinball Arcade is no longer available in the Live Arcade store. Our publisher for the 360 version recently emerged from bankruptcy and we'd been told that we would be allowed to immediately submit all of the unreleased Table Packs to our long-suffering 360 users. Unfortunately, Microsoft has elected to revoke the publisher's license agreement (which is why the Pinball Arcade is temporarily not available in the store). However, we have some very good news to share- Microsoft has just announced that indie developers (like FarSight) can now self-publish on Xbox Live Arcade instead of being required to find publishers for their games. This means we can bring the Pinball Arcade back to the 360 ourselves, and also opens the door to an Xbox One version of the Pinball Arcade in the future! Microsoft has stated that the new program will open in August- we will do everything we can to get the Pinball Arcade (and all of the new Table Packs) back on the Xbox 360 as quickly as possible.
We're following up on this story, and will pass along details as we get them. UPDATE: A representative for Microsoft only had this to say: "We have not announced any changes to our publishing policy for Xbox 360. We look forward to sharing more about self-publishing on Xbox One at Gamescom." Farsight lead designer Bobby King told Gamasutra, "Sorry, but we cannot confirm independent publishing on 360. We are hopeful that we can bring the Pinball Arcade back to the 360 ourselves and apologize if our statement was taken to mean anything different." We're continuing to follow this story.
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