VG247

Microsoft has remained quiet on the issue of Indie developers on Xbox One since the console was unveiled back in May, but Lionhead Studios’ creative director Gary Carr has suggested that Phil Harrison – pictured – is gearing up to unveil his strategy on the matter “very soon”, and that indies still remain important to the company.

Speaking with OXM, Carr suggested that Sony’s former worldwide studios president Harrison – who is now heading up Microsoft’s European developer relations – has plans when it comes to indies.

“Oh, I think you’ll find he’s coming,” Carr said of Harrison’s grand strategy. “His platform is very soon, don’t you worry about that.”

Carr added, “I certainly know that Microsoft want to talk at future press events about their relationships with indies. I can’t really talk about that, but they’re very passionate about building a strong relationship with indie development – indie development is the future.

“I’ve been an indie developer for 23 of my 28 year career, so I completely – there is no future to the games business without independent developers, they always will shape the industry, and the big corporations will follow,” Carr went on. “So that relationship is important.

“I don’t mind having the big players like the Sonys, the Microsofts, the Amazons. I think you need these big giants out there, they kind of hold it all together in some way, but the real driving force of the industry has always been independent development. That’s what shapes and changes and creates innovation. I think they can coexist.”

We already know that Xbox One will support Unity, and it was rumoured that Microsoft was set to announce self-publishing on the console last month, but it never happened. Could this be par tof Harrison’s master plan? 

http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/18/microsoft-is-passionate-about-indies-will-talk-about-them-very-soon-says-lionhead/

In all honesty it feels more that they have come to see how important the indie community is and are now doing another 180 on the matter, just behind closed doors. As long as they bring proper support come launch day, all is well.

I have seen a number of comments similar to this.  How do any of the people associated with or posting on VGChartz have any real idea how M$ has been dealing with indies from the start?  We have no idea...  We also have no idea how Sony has been dealing with them.  I am sure it will come out in the distant future, but we will have no real idea for some time.  The few "articles" that I have found on the net pertaining to this don't have any real info, they just seem to be "bloggers" and "writers" that are sharing an opinion but no real info on the matter. 

If we step back and look at this a little different, we can see that the XBone has the Windows RT OS running on it.  The Win RT OS has 100,000+ apps now available to it.  Do we really think that M$ isn't going to have some ability to run most if not all of those apps on the XBone?  Now, of course a large chunk of those are silly and stupid, but what this will do is allow any developer to make a game that works on the 100+ million windows 8 pc's and with probably small changes also work on XBone.  Will these apps be AAA games?  NO, but most independant games usually aren't anyway.  But, they will allow people to go after creating new and unique things to the XBone.

Just my opinion, but that's the whole point of these posts on here anyway isn't it?

The OP makes it seem like this was all a plan all along.
This is more like "look how we completely reversed policy again".
Wise decision to approach it this way MS.

Everything in line with the Xbox 180 plan

Good that they leanerd this lesson... for now.

There are aticles in Gamesutra and others sites showing how MS is dealing with indies for now... so we have ideia.

Incorrect. We don't know anything for sure, but do have an idea. There've been some developers who said they hated working with ms and some saying that Sony ended up being amazing/much better than they expected. Also, the non self-publishing thing  put off some developers (not writers) according to their own comments. So, again, we do have an idea thanks to twitter and some interviews. Thus the bolded from your post is wrong.

As I said it was just how "feel" things have been going. I'm basing that on the various critisism we have heard from indie developers in regards to the Xbone and Microsoft in general. In contrast to that we've seen Sony showing off vaste numbers of indie games as well as public comments on how easy they are making things for indie developers.

So no, I cannot know as fact, but their is sufficent evidence for thew matter to validate an opinion.

google "team meat" and you'll get plenty of insight to any number extreemly vocal complaints from the indie scence towards MS for the last 2-3 years.  that's actually the point, this isn't a "oh we just having announced a xbone strategy" thing.  MS has been in the bad with the indies for a long time now which makes these PR statements even more disingenuous. 

sony is getting better, indies have been vocal about it and more importantly the huge number of timed (and possibly fully) exclusive indie titles coming to ps4/vita says it all.  indies, in general, don't want to work with MS anymore.  this is a huge turn-around from the early days when castle crashers, limbo, braid, fez, shank, and a ton of other big indie games where exclusive to MS.

the critical point of contention is being able to self publish.  sony allows it now.  nintendo allows it now.  ms does not and has officially stated as such.   ...well, not unless you develop for windows which means also supporting other devices (like the surface which doesn't have a controller meaning games have to be re-worked for new control schemes).   if ms changes from their aforementioned statement: it's xbox 180 again.

MS has helped make many indie devs into stars; we all know Jon Blow, Phil Fish and Team Meat are. Xbox' indie channel has also been valuable for devs. MS is unfairly maligned for some reason, they've done more for indies than any other console.