Hello Games chose to release Joe Danger via Sony's PlayStation Network because the team regarded Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade as a "slaughterhouse" for small developers.

Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton today, Hello Games' Sean Murray said that while the top ten titles on XBLA sell very well and have high profiles amongst consumers, a significant proportion of games sell less than 25,000 units on the service, and quickly disappear after release.

"Why choose PSN? It was the only way we could self-publish," said Murray. " XBLA is kind of a slaughterhouse for smaller developers. There are games that do amazingly well. But there's two titles released every week and a lot of those are falling in that 25,000 or less category."

Murray's session included his own stats collated from Xbox Live Arcade, which he presented with the caveat that there were not official figures, but he believed them to be realistic.

Of titles on XBLA that were self-published without the assistance of third-parties, Murray claimed 47 per cent sold less than 25,000 copies, 23 per cent sold around 100,000 copies, 13 per cent 200,000 copies and 17 per cent more than 200,000.

Murray revealed that Joe Danger broke-even on its first day of release on PSN and sold 50,000 copies in its first week.

Console services are ripe opportunities for independent developers, said Murray, as big third-party publishers regard them as "the ginger step-child" of the digital downloads market and are not willing to experiment with releasing creative games in the space.

"It's not to say publishers are shit, but small studios are amazing in this space," stressed Murray.

He also revealed some of the knock back statements Hello Games received from early talks with publishers for Joe Danger, including: "Name me one popular game with motorbikes", "we want games that are less about fun right now" and "can Joe be a monkey? We like monkeys".

Finally, he wouldn't discuss the next project from the four-man team, but said that if the company can double, "what we could do with eight people could be fucking amazing, basically."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xbla-is-a-slaughter-house-for-smaller-developers

I always trust the word of people that are professional enough to curse in their press releases. Lulz.

Am I to understand correctly that he is complaining (from a developers standpoint) about the amount of content released on XBLA?

I don't buy a ton of XBLA games, but...isn't it better for me that there is a huge variety?

I hope he is right...no one wants crap games released on XBLA and filling the weekly game releases slot. It happens enough already...

I can't think of a single good game that didn't sell well on xbox live.

Its a simple rule for small publisher of...if you make a good game, you will get your money back. If not, why bother releasing it?

Fixed.

The video game crash of 1983 was caused in part by a flood of games that no one wanted to buy but developers thought 'should' sell because they were awesome.

Developers assume that because they've made a game that they would want to play, that the mass-market will want to play it too.

So good games sell well on XBLA.... nice.

So he feels his game wouldn't sell well because of the competition on XBLA? I guess their game isn't that good then.

"we want games that are less about fun right now"

If someone really said that, they should be slapped right in the mouth.

Fair enough.

People most likely didn't want to buy them cause they didn't want to play them, most likely because the games weren't good... So what came first, bad game chicken or the flood of games no one wanted to buy egg? :)

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/joedanger

They've done fairly well for themselves critically so I doubt that's the reason.

edit: Basically all he's saying is that he chose PSN as a platform because there is less competition.  Which is a good strategy sometimes and has helped some games sell extremely well (like Tales of Symphonia).