Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are all doing their best to attract indie developers to their consoles, and at PAX Prime Microsoft gave more details about ID@Xbox program that has been set up to help indie developers put their games on the Xbox One. Those who enter the program will receive two Xbox One development kits for free from Microsoft, along with the ability to access Achievements, the Xbox Live toolset, cloud services, Kinect and SmartGlass for use in their games that they are bringing to the Xbox One. Speaking to Joystiq during PAX Prime Chris Charla, Microsoft's portfolio director for digital games, stated that the ID@Xbox program will allow users access to "every business model that any other game on Xbox One has." This means that users will be able to make free to play, microtransactions, and premium pricing games if they so choose. Charla stated that this is to help ID@Xbox games have the same advantages that games created by big studios have:
"On Xbox One, games that come through ID@Xbox are no different than any other game. They have full Gamerscore, full Achievements, can take advantage of SmartGlass, Kinect - if you can do it with an Xbox One game, you can do it with anything that comes through the ID@Xbox program. That's like a fundamental tenet of the program."
Considering that Microsoft is pushing hard to have both indie games and free to play games available on the Xbox One, this move makes sense. This will make it so free to play games, which are primarily found in the realm of the mobile industry and MMO's, can come to the console and may help propel the console to the forefront of the market. After all, free to play games like Plants vs. Zombies 2 and Angry Birds have helped the mobile game industry take off in the past few years, so having a platform for indie developers to get their product on the Xbox One may help the console reach a different audience.
The Xbox One is scheduled to appear sometime in November, and while several different dates have been rumored for the exact release date of the console, none have emerged as the confirmed date for the console's release. The console will be the most expensive next-gen console at the market at $500, with the PlayStation 4 coming in at $400 and the Wii U getting a price drop in September that will put it at $300.