Will the new prices be the sweet spot for indie devs?
Tom Bramwell of GI.biz reports that Microsoft will be updating the Community Games channel on X Box Live on October 22. The CG channel will become the Indie Games channel. Microsoft is setting new price points and restrictions for developers, cutting the price of indie games in half. Developers could sell their games for 800, 400 or 200 Microsoft points, but that will change when the update is released.
The update will now have games selling at 400, 240 and 80 MSP, about $5, $3.50 and $1 respectively, and a 50 MB memory cap will be placed on games selling for 80 MSP.
Developers currently selling games at 400 MSP will be able to stay at that price, but updates will bring those games down to 200 MSP. Furthermore, games at the 200 MSP will have to drop to 80 MSP.
A bevy of new features will be included in the XNA Game Studio 3.1 update that will precede the new pricing structure including:
- Avatar
- Party and video playback support
- A new reputation system
- Ability to give away 50 free trial copies for promotion
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