Within the first three months of 2014, we will see the first wave of indie games hit the Xbox One created under the ID@Xbox initiative, according to the ID@Xbox director Chris Charla. Speaking to Edge, Charla wasn’t able to say exactly how many games will be released in Q1, but they are on the way.
“I think it will be early in the New Year, in the first three months,” Charla said, but then clarified that it would likely be closer to March.
The Independent Developer Publishing Program, or ID@Xbox, was established to make life easier on the indie developers working on the Xbox One. According to Microsoft, the goal is to make it so “anyone with a retail Xbox One will be able to develop, publish, and sell their game on Xbox Live.”
One intrepid Reddit user actually discovered a way to unlock the development tools on a standard, retail Xbox One, but Microsoft quickly warned against this. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can easily put your Xbox One into an endless boot loop.
Developers that are interested in unlocking these tools need to apply for a license through Microsoft, something many were apparently keen to do. Although Charla didn’t mention any specific titles, at least 32 developers have begun working on projects.
“Some developers started developing for Xbox One, others already had games in development and are working on Xbox One versions,” Charla stated. “I would say they’re at all stages of development, honestly.”
