Is it me or haven't we heard several times that MS works on a case by case basis with developers anyway... ??? have never seen a clause that is not breakable in the private sector if it's a win win situation... Unless it is a true legal issue of course otherwise you can pretty much negotiate anything on a contract....

Litigation costs money. But this isn't a contract, its a policy. So you can't take MS to court for them rejecting your game because of the parity clause. MS would ony reconsider the clause of the game was popular/well known like Minecraft.

So it basically forces all indie games that are considering to be on xbox one to prioritize them at the expense of the other 4 platforms (Nintendo, PS, PC, Mobile) with the cost of locking out any developers who have already released on other platforms or do not have enough resources to port there game to a profitable platform.

In short, it doesn't really help indie devs and mainly is good for MS. Its not a win win in the slightest.

I'm not talking about going to court for any reasons.... policy or not this is not a legal issue therefore there is no reason it can't be debated in favor of both parties.... I have signed half a dozen of contract and policy books lately if there was stuff I didn't like in it.... I just asked for the stuff to be removed from the policies or the contract or to adjust something else in my favor to compensate or there was no deal.... even when the company holding the contract was a multi billion euros company... it's in their best interest to adapt to each situation if it means gain for both parties...


fact is if it is not a federal or state law that is being broken it can be change in a case by case situation... that is true for any and everything in the business world....

in other words if they are already released on an other platform and if they are successful they have plenty of weight to convince MS to bend the policy... or do a deal like I release first my next game on XB if you let me release my current IPs on your console first.... like I said if it isn't a law it is nothing more than a line on a piece of paper and those line can all be changed no matter who is behind it.... it's all about incentive for and from both parties.... and it doesn't take long to change... and doesn't cost much time or money especially for big companies that have a dedicated policy department.... 10 minutes on a friday evening is enough...

Look, that's a reasonable argument but here is the problem:

The Policy obviously benifits Microsoft, the onlt one that would be trying to convince them would be the indie. Indies are tiny and don't have much leverage or sway unless of course they become mainstream and stop being truly indie. With that being said, their is no way an indie company is going to be able to negotiate this policy change (not a contract) with Microsoft, even if its "succesful" by its own standards on other platforms. This reason alone is enough to bar indies from even trying to negotiate with Microsoft because that is an extreme hassle, especially for less then half of current gen marketshare.

They can do that, they just have to release on the x1 first...

yet another case...

http://gamingbolt.com/the-chainsaw-incident-to-run-at-1080p60fps-on-ps4-dev-explains-why-it-is-not-coming-to-xbox-one

"Microsoft has so many requirements to self-publish on the platform"

They are just creating a divide. half devs are bending over to their rules and the other half are ditching xbox. not good for xbox fans or PS fans.

I don't believe for a second that it's about the gamers. If this were Sony on the opposite side I would say they same thing. It's about having leverage with developers and publishers. If it was about gamers then developers and publishers who don't abide by this wouldn't be locked out.

the fuck is this? this doesn't make any sense. So they'd rather not have the games ever....ok...................

This is not a good situation for gamers. At least Sony will allow games, example being Limbo on PSN after they have been on Xbox Live instead of locking them out permanently which is nuts yet this is what MS are saying. I wonder if enough top quality games appear first on PSN, MS will end up changing there stance to enable the games to appear on Live?

That will definitely force ms to change stance. Let's hope indies don't cave to ms demands and rather ditch the platform all together...that way we might see those policies change. But by the looks of it ms is securing a decent amount of indie support for x1 considering the complete pr fuckup they have just been through. Oh we'll.