Braid creator: Sony take more risks than MS with indie games

The creator of XBLA smash Braid has claimed that most Xbox Live Indie Games are "not very good" - and that Sony is less "conservative" than Microsoft when it comes to approving titles for PSN.

[Iamback]

Ok this is true and all but why was Braid first released on 360? This is question to them.

[NewMonday]

"Although Blow said that Braid was released during a 'big time of optimism' for indie devs with games on XBLA - a year which also saw the release of Trials HD and Shadow Complex - he now believes 'the majority of games released on XBLA recently, most of them tank, they lose money' "

What changed now?

[Masamori Sumimura]

nobody cared about braid that's why he's complaining.

TrialsHD , splosion man , comc jumper, shadow complex , limbo , blade kitten and Dead rising 2 all have sold greatly.

whenever you decide to make games exclusive to one console you lose potential money.

[mrv321]

'TrialsHD , splosion man , comc jumper, shadow complex and Dead rising 2 all have sold greatly. '

Trials HD isn't too much of an indie game, it's made by a small company, but one that knows it's market pretty well.

Splosion Man and Comic jumper are indie.

BUT... SHADOW COMPLEX and Dead Rising Case Zero could not be further from indie, both with huge support from Epic and Capcom, it'd be like calling Gears of War and Resident Evil 'indie'

The problem I see is over saturation.

[StanLee]

Games like Super Meat Boy and Limbo has seen great success on XBox 360 and aren't really "indie" games. Indie games like Halfbrick Echoes, Lumi and Breeze are really indie successes from XBL Indie Games. Sony may take more risks but XBL is still the biggest platform for success even Blow knows that.

[Active Reload]

I remember him being frustrated with MS because they were weary of him asking for $1 million to cover everything to get the game to the masses. If I find time I'll search further for that interview.

[RedDragan]

@StanLee

And you know Live is better for indie games.... how exactly?

[UnwanteDreamz]

@ StanLee

I can think of a few interviews where actual devs disagree with you so I would venture to say that your statement is true or false depending on who you speak with. I guess that makes your statement an opinion.

[Theonik]

"TrialsHD , splosion man , comc jumper, shadow complex , limbo , blade kitten and Dead rising 2 all have sold greatly."

Totally explains why the team that made blade Kitten got fired. Besides most of the games you mentioned aren't indie titles. Now blow actually has a point here nowadays Xbla has too much competition to the point that the market is saturated and only a handful of games do really well but the ones that do do so big time as XBLA is a large market. Problem is in getting your game "out there" but for indie devs it's difficult.

[rrw]

Because it easier to develop on xbox than ps3.

probably because of this PSN have more quality product since they develop much more serious than live counter part.

[gillri]

Braid = one of the best games ever made

[TheMART]

Not only with its indy games, also with the big IP's they do.

MS turned down on LittleBigPlanet when they got it handed on a silver plate by Media Molecule. Because of that decision I had to buy a POS3. Damn you MS.

LBP2 USA Collectors edition coming my way in little more than 3 weeks w00t w00t

But its truth, same reason Joe Danger launched on PS3, while the 360 version was already made also but hasn't released yet.

[mrv321]

Microsoft turned down LBP because they don't want to pay for XBL and the cost LBP will cause.

[GoldPS3]

I didn't know LBP was gonna be on 360. You'll learn something new every day lol. MS strewed up on this one.

[ThatIrishGamer]

LBP wouldn't have been has huge on 360 as XBOX gamers are the most closed minded of all the current gen systems.

LBP would be too different for them to grasp. First of all there's no real weapons in the game - that might give them seizures.

[knowledge4lfe]

theMART is there a reason you call it a POS3?? whats so great about the 360.i wanted gears of war so i had to buy an xbox 3shitty.(see what i did there)? i guess you enjoy pissing away money for xbox live, a total joke by the way, rrod and e74 error break downs. with no 1st party support and if it wasnt for all the money they threw at companies n advertisement a like, it would be considered a joke. but please explain why its a POS3.PLEASE

[gcolley]

why do you care?

[dinkeldinkse]

TheMart used to be the biggest 360 fanboy on this site. I am glad to see that he is not given up on saying fanboyish things.

[Danja]

Im actually surprised to see that he is still commenting him and bladestar were the biggest fanboys back in the day ..

on topic MS seems to not really care about indie games but more so in trying to get popular arcade games from the past on xbla
..

[Flashwave_UK]

loool lbp on 360 with the ugly ass cover case hahaha

[Stationfan]

Very true, one of the reasons that it went to ps3 was because of Live. While it's seamless it also has it cons one of them is the restrictions placed with user created dlc.

While psn lacks a integrated system its loose infrastructure is also a pro because it opens itself up to the play create genre, like modnation racers, Lbp, and maybe in the future who knows maybe Fps were you can rearrange the maps and create your own choke points from already pre made maps. But you arrange them how you want.

So I guess psn has the upper hand on live in this aspect

[Thoreau]

pos3, is that what you think about......i was going to give you a bub, but i cannot.....

[Acquiescence]

We all knew this already though, didn't we?

[TenSteps]

*looks at Q-games and thatGameCompany*

Yup those two justify the statement imo

[EVO-OM3GA]

Hmmmm interesting when you look at both the PSN and Live releases you would see far more indies on live than you would on PSN but oh well..

[TroyAndAbed]

1. Live has been out longer.
2. Live has a platform for developers to make their own games.

Sony is still much more willing to let a developer release a game on the platform. They also like to ensure quality from that developer...helping them along the way, if need be.

[EVO-OM3GA]

1. Live has been around longer, Sony has been around longer than MS so shouldnt they be pushing MS to up there game on the Software front like there doing with there hardware.
2.Your right about that, but is that a bad thing?

Sony ensures quality from there developers, sorry but what makes you suggest MS dont, how many Live titles have you played?

[Jdoki]

@EVO

I would say it's quality vs quantity. Both platforms have great titles, but I prefer the stuff on PSN.

And if we are arguing the quantity angle - I'd say Steam kicks both PSN and XBLA's backsides. And at the moment they have some great offers on Indie game packs.

[EVO-OM3GA]

I agree with thte statement of Quality over Quantity but as of the end of 2010 all I have heard is PS3 users go on about the number of games there getting 2011, no one has played any of them aside from betas but they all believe they will all be quality thats complete bullshit and everyone knows it, some will get good reviews others wont, they will be compared to the previous versions and be rated on the good the bad and the stupid as all games are and we all know for a fact they wont all sell amazing numbers (and yes sales matters when your spending 20-40mil to develop games).

My point about live is alot of games on there are good, there different I think you find theres a more diverse lineup every month on live and each game is unique.

I dont use steam not a PC gamer so i cannot comment

[Rage_S90]

you obviously didnt read the article it gives you the reason in it

[FordGTGuy]

Microsoft is the only gaming company to offer a indie developer market on their marketplace. XNA anyone?

[duplissi]

wow so they gave them a section in the store! so that like, means their games cant fit in other catagories!

[FordGTGuy]

Sony does not offer tools for the creation of indie games on their hardware like XNA, the indie marketplace on Xbox live is specifically for XNA built games. Or games made by independent at home gamers.

[duplissi]

sdk.

[SonyNGP]

Super Meat Boy needs to be on PSN.

[BrutallyBlunt]

Agreed but Sony was not interested which makes Jonathan Blow's comments moot.

[Mundo]

What did the xbox do to him? I'm trying to recall a good thing he has said about it.

[TroyAndAbed]

Sony said they didn't have interest because it may interfere with 1st party releases. I think they'd gladly welcome it if they didn't have so many studios working on exclusive PSN games.

[BrutallyBlunt]

He was all uppity about the pricing of Braid before it came out on XBLA and how Microsoft pretty much forced it to be that price. Then when it finally came to the PC and Playstation 3 guess how much it cost on release? The same!

Seems to me he is a whiner like David Jaffe but at least this guy (Blow) wants more exposure for Indie developers and just wants more people to play his games. Calling All Cars tanked and could have sold a lot better if it was not only available on the Playstation 3.

[joeorc]

Hmmmm interesting when you look at both the PSN and Live releases you would see far more indies on live than you would on PSN but oh well..

the only reason i disagreed with you on that is because with playstation Home also getting more indie developer's I do not think that is the case right now.

there are many indie developers making or are making games on playstation platform now.An with playstation Home being a very good platform to make indie style games on the playstation Home platform i do not think that is the case anymore it may still have the xbl lead with indie developer's #'s being more but i do not think in my opinion is that much over to Be that far more.

@ FordGTGuy

This makes no sense
Microsoft is the only gaming company to offer a indie developer market on their marketplace. XNA anyone?

that's not the case at all, Playstation Home is like that very same type of indie developer platform you are talking about that XNA is. for instance there is right now more games from indie developers that are making games for playstation Home than they were for the entire first year of the playstation Home service when it first opened up. not just more but far greater number's.

an example:

The director said the Home team is continuing to work on trying to bring smaller, independent developers to the service. PlayStation Home sponsored IndieCade this year and had a presence at Game Developers Conference Online in Austin. PlayStation Home's team also inked a deal this summer with indie game publisher Codename to bring games to the service.

http://www.codenamegames.co...

[EVO-OM3GA]

I agree with you on Home being a good platform for games but it isnt there YET!

MS backs alot more of there titles to support the use of Avatars, Sony arent!

I read the article MS approves of alot more games than PS3 so who is taking the bigger risk if we take a look at SuperMeat Boy MS took an interest Sony didnt so who missed out on a good game PS users, there are alot of good games on PSN dont get me wrong but what I think Sony is doing alittle too often is waiting for games to become a HIT then taking them on board and that is complete BS

[Ruggadagod]

takes more risks PERIOD. it's for the greater good of all PlayStation fans around the world. ms only takes risks if they can benefit with money and not for the fans.

[Jdoki]

I pretty much agree with that.

Sony's diverse line-up of games - both retail and PSN is the reason the Playstation brand is so good.

[Rage_S90]

this isnt even a fanboy statement just look at games like ico or flower

[gcolley]

i would still say kinect is a bigger risk than move

[Ruggadagod]

the only reason Microsoft took that risk was because they were going after that left-over casual wii audience and that's about it. aka leaving the core xbox fanbase behind besides gears 3. with the move, it was just something on he side to Sony because they already have so many first-party studios making games for them.

[TroyAndAbed]

Sony takes "smart risks".

There is a massive difference.

SEGA took risks too. Most of them were terrible!

The Dreamcast was ahead of its time. That doesn't matter, however, when you don't have developer support.

[clrlite]

Troy already said what I came here to say. I wouldn't call them risks necessarily, but maybe, calculated/smart risks. Let the innovation continue!

[joeorc]

"
MS backs alot more of there titles to support the use of Avatars, Sony arent! "

that was true before not now, you see many of the new indie developer's that are making game's are making them where your avatar is inside the game...look at the link i provided about
codename as an example has the game's where your avatar is the playing piece. not only them but there is more other games like "sams slap happy stage show" which also has the ability to interact with playstation Home avatars being able to battle it out.

plus there is more in the works.
like a mystry spy game with playstation Home avatar's vs other playstation Home avatars.

there is quite a bit of thing's that Home is getting made for it as a Plaform that is free that's quite a suprise. yes the Microtransactions may seem stupid to some, but it' showing it works. Like for instance there is over 7000 items, some are better items than others in my opinion.

for example the Heavy strike cannon can, allow you to shoot other avatars inside your personal space an knock them back.

taking that very Item can show just what types of thing's you could do in Playstation Home for example..a worms type of game with heavy strike cannons.

it's not created yet but a 3d avatar game based on worms for playstation Home would be a real hoot in my opinion, who knows it may get made. every one with a strike cannon brings it to a space an everyone play's a lil scorch earth. lol

that's just one IDEA that could be made just from that one item alone. it already effect's avatars already give the avatars a hit bar which can be done already, if you ever been to seaside memories space under the water you know what im talking about.

add other effect's to the space an you have a great multiplayer Avatar vs Avatar game.

who knows maybe they are working on that very concept with that heavy strike cannon.

an that's just with one ITEM there are more that could be made to be used in a game of Avatar vs Avatar..heck you can equip your avatars with weapon's already anyway. a gladitor duel is more than likely on the way for playstation Home. use of Move as a control scheme for that Avatar duel would be awsome in my opinion.

once again they infact may be working on such a game, but many user's seem to think playstation home is usesless, but would that be a suprise if in fact games like that are being made an people are not looking at home as such a platform for game development.

people always said that Sony's leaks when it comes to getting an keeping their games underwraps is hard when people find out the suprise very early on before it's revealed. but with Home many gamers on the Playstation 3 seem to ignore Home because they do not use the service.

it seems the game leaks for Home are kept under wraps a lil better..anyway i like the suprise myself of logging on an seeing a brand new something being released for home each an every week.

[EVO-OM3GA]

I agree with all your saying there, but lets just see what happens for Sony and Home

[T3MPL3TON]

Only serious indie game fans actually cared about Braid. Limbo was a far more "indie" out there game. I'm quite frankly surprised Limbo ever came out on the 360. He's right when it comes to on disc titles but not in the arcade.

[Captain Tuttle]

Does PSN have something like the Indie Channel on Xbox Live Marketplace. There's more than 1,500 games on there right now.

This guy is a dick. He says that MS isn't friendly because most of the games in the Indie Section aren't as good as his?