14 DAY TRIAL // Chris Charla, the leader of the indie games publishing program at Microsoft, says that many of the titles that will be launched via the ID@Xbox initiative will make use of the SmartGlass and the Kinect features of the console.
He tells the Official Xbox Magazine that he does not have a clear image of how many of the games will be offered exclusively on the platform, but might offer more details at a later date.
The executive explains, “I don’t know, because the developers have only told me about the version they’re making for Xbox One!”
He adds, “But I will say that there are some really cool concepts that have come in which make use of Kinect and SmartGlass, so it’s pretty exciting in that way – some of those games would be hard to put on another platform.”
At the moment, we know that there are 32 developers who are part of the ID@Xbox program, but not every one of them has offered a name for the game they are working on or details about their gameplay mechanics.
Launch games for the Xbox One, including Forza Motorsport 5, Dead Rising 3 and Ryse: Son of Rome, included some features linked to the Kinect and to SmartGlass.
But players need a constant stream of new content to remain engaged and indie games, which can be created and launched at a faster pace, could be a simple way of keeping the two hardware features relevant into 2014.
Microsoft and Sony have courted indie developers since their next generation home consoles were first announced.
Both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One need to launch smaller games in order to attract an audience that traditionally only plays on the PC.
Recently, Chris Charla has also said that he is interested in bringing No Man’s Sky, from Hello Games, to the Microsoft home console.