GSC, creators of the PC game "s.t.a.l.k.e.r - Shadow of Chernobyl" has become Xbox certified. The press release from http://www.gsc-game.com/index.php?t=news&ss=296 GSC Game World is glad to announce it is now officially certified by Microsoft as an Xbox 360 developer. As part of the program, GSC Game World obtained all the necessary development tools, so as support from Microsoft to get down to development of projects on Xbox 360. Sergiy Grygorovych, the CEO of GSC Game World, said: "We are happy to say the big efforts of our company aimed to obtain the official Xbox 360 developer status now ended with success. Obtaining such a status for an independent developer based in ex-USSR means a lot - it took us over 2 years to get. We are very thankful to Microsoft for the assistance and high esteem of our team's professionalism. From now on, our old ambition to create multiplatform projects has become a reality. Such a policy is also fully compliant with the current game industry tendencies. Creating games for PC, we achieved practically everything, and now are prepared to garner the top spots in sales charts and gamers' recognition in the world of console games too. This said, we will continue paying maximum attention to the PC platform." For those wondering, GSC is a Ukrianian-based developer and publisher. Even though s.t.a.l.k.e.r is a smaller-known title in the US, it's huge in Europe, mainly Eastern Europe. GSC self-published the game there, and sold over 500,000 copies in Eastern Europe (ie, Poland, and former soviet territories). With them being a self publisher, this is huge for Microsoft in that area. Console sales, according to VGC are very, very bad in that part of the world, as they are mainly still using PCs. As far as I know, there aren't any console developers there, aside from whomever made/sold Tetris to the West. Also, from their Russian website, there's more info about what GSC plans to do for the X360 there: "Our second aim is to increase X360 install base and legal software sales in ex-USSR region. Creation of high quality, interesting, comprehensible for our players titles and acceptable cost of games is the key to this task." So it's possible that the X360 could reach out to the former USSR territories, and Russia and do well. The economies in said countries are increasing, and the median incomes might warrant a decent bit of console purchases.

Ukranian software engineers work very hard and are good developers, I know because I've worked with some of them. If they get some good game designers, they can make great games for sure.

Thats very good to hear.

Russia is former-USSR territory too, y'know. :p

Honestly, they should try going multiplatform. That's the only real way to draw attention to consoles over there. Go Wii and 360, which would cause people of various demographics to go for it. 360 just shoots at people of too many similar demographics. Could be a poor business solution.

theone - but at the same time, the X360 has found great succuess in most every market that has been very PC-centric.

Many markets that only are fimilar with the PC are more likely to adopt to a console that has alot of PC-type games on it. Take the DS, it has alot of PC ports like Sim City, Age of Empires, and such....And it does great in Germany (where most consoles don't do too well).

Scandanavia is another place that's similar, as it's PC dominated. Despite that, the X360 is doing fairly well there. So thats why it's a great move for GSC.

Then add in the X360 development tools which allow developers to easily, and cheaply port PC games to Xbox 360 (which is why there are so many X360 console exclusives that are on PC as well), and it's the solution that will work best for GSC. If they went Wii/PS3, they'd have to re-build each game for those respective systems, and would add up to alot more money.....Which for a Ukrainian developer, I am sure they have to be very thrifty with their money.