Xbox vice president promises “10 more years” of support for indie devs

techradar.com:

Sarah Bond, Corporate Vice President at Xbox promises that gamers are in for “10 more years” of indie titles from Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program.  

The ID@Xbox program has helped people all over the world enjoy titles from smaller studios, by giving their games a platform on Xbox Series X|S, PC andXbox Game Pass. The program has hardly been a token effort from Microsoft, either. 

I sat down with Bond to discuss Xbox’s plans with independent titles going forward. “It’s been 10 years of ID@Xbox, we’ve actually paid out four billion dollars to independent developers over those 10 years. We have 5,000 creators in the program, and 700 that joined even in the last 12 months.” To put that figure in perspective, that’s four times the rumored budget of Halo Infinite (via GameRant). 

Bond sees Xbox’s commitment to indie games as “imperative”. “You know, 70% of people under the age of 25 would rather play a game than any other form of media. What do we want them to be playing?.. I want them to have the ability to experience things that they otherwise never would.” 

The vice president went on to discuss the successes of Tunic and Vampire Survivors, both of which were produced with the help of the ID@Xbox program. “Every year… some massive game emerges from an independent development studio… which basically [takes] over many people’s lives.” She continued: “[indie games are] an important investment for us, because we see so much innovation coming from there, but also it is the place where we see the most opportunity for new voices, perspectives, and talent to emerge.” 

Bond also described a new program in the works which would allow indie developers to “prototype their games and get real-time feedback as they’re learning.” Independent game