Official_Xbox_Magazine_USA_Issue_202_July_2017
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“Developers have<br />
sold millions of<br />
games through iD<br />
and it’s awesome<br />
to be a small<br />
part of that”<br />
games that are coming from devs from a<br />
new territory—we just had our first game<br />
pass cert that was developed in Africa—or<br />
maybe a game uses an <strong>Xbox</strong> Live feature like<br />
Arena in some cool way. So, I get excited<br />
about a lot of games for a lot of reasons.<br />
Personally, as a player, I am really looking<br />
forward to Below, Tacoma, and Cuphead!<br />
Out of the ID@<strong>Xbox</strong> games you’ve played<br />
recently, which would you say have really<br />
stood out for you?<br />
Thimbleweed Park has been really fun—<br />
there’s so much content in the game, and I<br />
love adventure games. And it’s cool seeing<br />
my friends’ names in the game—they were<br />
Kickstarter backers! And I’m still having a lot<br />
of fun with Astroneer and Ark. This weekend I<br />
played a lot of Snake Pass too, which is<br />
super original and super challenging (and<br />
satisfying!). I end up playing a lot of games a<br />
little bit just to try to and play everything.<br />
how do you find new games to bring to ID@<br />
<strong>Xbox</strong>? Do developers come to you, or do you<br />
go to them?<br />
Both of those things happen. Lots and lots<br />
of developers join the program and submit<br />
games, and that’s how we learn about them,<br />
and we also do a lot of outreach at shows<br />
like GDC, PAX and others, online, and at small<br />
dev events we have. We are always on the<br />
hunt for cool games!<br />
how much do you think people are using<br />
cross play to play against players on pCs or<br />
other Windows 10 devices? Are many indie<br />
developers adding it to their games?<br />
Cross play is a feature we’re really excited to<br />
support, and if you look at a title like Rocket<br />
League that supports cross-network play<br />
with PC versions of the game, it’s really<br />
popular. For us, <strong>Xbox</strong> Live and everything we<br />
do on <strong>Xbox</strong> is all about enabling play and<br />
enabling players. So, from the perspective<br />
of <strong>Xbox</strong> Play Anywhere—which means that<br />
once you buy a game on Windows 10 or<br />
<strong>Xbox</strong>, you own it for both platforms to cross<br />
play on <strong>Xbox</strong> Live between Windows and<br />
<strong>Xbox</strong>—it’s something we’re excited to<br />
support. We’ve seen some good take up<br />
across all those initiatives, although the bulk<br />
of games that ship through ID are singleplayer,<br />
so it’s not always possible to support<br />
all those features.<br />
next we’d like to talk about the Creator’s<br />
program, which you announced for smaller<br />
developers to bring games to <strong>Xbox</strong>. When it<br />
was announced, ID@<strong>Xbox</strong> was designed to<br />
be a way to make it easy for indie developers<br />
to make games. If that’s the case, why do<br />
you need the Creator’s program?<br />
Looking at both paths, we want to give<br />
developers more choice in how they bring<br />
their games to <strong>Xbox</strong> Live. From the start,<br />
ID@<strong>Xbox</strong> was designed for professional<br />
game developers who wish to use the full<br />
<strong>Xbox</strong> Live stack and have additional<br />
marketing and development support,<br />
including access to <strong>Xbox</strong> One and Project<br />
Scorpio development kits. Games that come<br />
through ID@<strong>Xbox</strong> get access to everything<br />
any other game can do on <strong>Xbox</strong>, whether<br />
that’s platform features or store promotion<br />
features. On the flip side, they still require<br />
full certification and full <strong>Xbox</strong> Live<br />
implementation to work.<br />
The Creators Program is great because it<br />
allows developers to quickly publish their<br />
game to <strong>Xbox</strong> One and Windows 10, with a<br />
simplified certification process. And you can<br />
integrate <strong>Xbox</strong> Live social features into your<br />
game with minimal development time. The<br />
Creators Program is for everyone, from<br />
professional developers to educators,<br />
students, hobbyists, experimenters, and<br />
makers of all shapes and sizes.<br />
All the way back in 2013, we were very<br />
clear that any <strong>Xbox</strong> would be able to be a<br />
dev kit, and that we wanted <strong>Xbox</strong> One to be<br />
something that was as good for creating as<br />
it was for enjoying games. This is why we<br />
opened up <strong>Xbox</strong> One to Universal Windows<br />
Platform (UWP) development last year with<br />
the release of the free Dev Mode Activation<br />
app. And we also opened up our app store<br />
on <strong>Xbox</strong> One to all app developers.<br />
With the Creators Program, we have now<br />
opened the store on <strong>Xbox</strong> One to all game<br />
developers. This is just another option for<br />
developers—a lightweight, fully public way<br />
to ship a game on Windows 10 and <strong>Xbox</strong> One.<br />
I think it’s a great compliment to ID@<strong>Xbox</strong><br />
and one that enables Microsoft to offer the<br />
broadest array of options to potential<br />
developers, from large corporations that<br />
manufacture millions of discs, to indie<br />
developers who focus on digital distribution,<br />
to folks who turn their retail <strong>Xbox</strong> One to a<br />
dev kit and just start creating.<br />
What sort of games do you expect to see<br />
from the Creator’s program? Is there a variety<br />
049<br />
More great interviews at gamesradar.com/oxm<br />
the official xbox magazine