Kyle Arsenalt from TwoDashStash Writes:
The Xbox Live Indie Games section of the Xbox Live marketplace hasn't had the best reputation, with many perceiving it to be a dumping ground of shovelware and inferior clones of popular games (see: Castleminer Z and The endless Flappy Bird Imitators). I, however, having dug deep into the depths of this apparent cesspool, have come across some truly exciting and innovative titles.
There were so many awesome games, ones that could go toe-to-toe against the established Indie classics on the PC that I couldn't fit them all on one list. Without Further Ado: Here are Ten Great Xbox Live Indie Games That You're Missing Out On!
The Xbox 360 launched in North America 18 years ago, and is now officially old enough to buy you a drink in Europe.
Great platform, and many of its games (not bc) still hold up well to this day. Like the PS3, I keep a 360 hooked up for those games you can't play any other way.
The last gasp of greatness from XBox, you are missed, except the RROD that was lame, but amazing exclusives until the Kinect dropped.
I really enjoyed my X360, some great exclusives on it. Used to play the shit out ot Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, two masterpieces
It's been 20 years to the day since Xbox Live brought online play to consoles.
I remember when Live turned five and they had special edition controllers made and everything. Kind of wished they would do that again for the 20th.
Happy Birthday. OG XBL (and later 360 XBL) really revolutionized online gaming on console.
Never understood the obsession with live...but I was gaming online on PC so not sure too much of what live did that the PlayStation didn't.
I had a PS2 and it's online experience was fine but it didn't have the same level of polish voice chat never worked for me but I was trying to play from Australia where not many people played PS2 online to the point where many devs simply dropped the online mode from the pal version.
That's not all PS2 games mind you there were plenty that worked perfectly but it was more on the dev and not the platform
During that era I also played a fairly large amount on online PC games and they were undoubtedly better than both systems. PS2 from functionality and Xbox because it was free
Playing my friends original Xbox it was a really polished experience it felt robust yet simple things just worked there was zero config.
Yeah but the time ps3 came the experience was the same on both based on what I played...not too much online though to be honest. But I do think that the xbox did help bring online into the console space a lot. As well as PC games to consoles.
Today would of been the perfect day to drop halo 2 the original bc version free on gwg.... If only
Xbox Live 1.0, the first instance of online servers for the original Xbox, is set to return via Insignia, a free third-party service that's currently compatible with 20 titles, such as Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Counter-Strike.
Lobbies, Matchmaking, Leaderboards, Voice Chat, Content Downloads, Friends Lists, all set to return
Halo 2 set to come later as it requires additional services to run online.
Beta sign ups available now with beta launch of 11/15/22. Certain features of XBL will roll out over the future.
So many interesting games I've never heard of.
Xbox Live IG has some really good games and some of these games launched careers.
I just take this as further highlighting the conundrum of how to manage indie games on the digital store front. You don't want the storefront to be this "cesspit" and you don't want the good indie games to be cordened off into the dark corner that only a tiny minority care to browse.
IMO the store front presence and management will be the thing that defines which platform is "best" for indies, from both a user and developer perspective. Annoying policies or drawn out certification processes take a backseat next to actually finding an audience for your game. Of course console sales is another big factor in that.