The sad situation that is Xbox Live Indie Games has been a topic I’ve addressed before, and its marginalized position as the red-headed stepchild of Xbox Live has been frustrating for creators and consumers alike. It looks like Microsoft is in a festive mood, considering there’s a rather large update to NXE around the corner, and it looks care about it has thrown a bone to all the indie kids in the XNA Creator’s Club. Yeah, that’s right, Indie Games is receiving a prett major update. While these changes are somewhat different from what I would expect, some of these changes could really go far to improving the service.

The most important update is a modification the the pricing structure of Indie Games. Whereas XNA developers could formerly price their games at 200, 400 or 800 points, any new games released will be priced at either 80, 240, or 400 points, with only games under 50 MB priced at 80 points. This price change is effective now, however current games will retain their original prices unless they are updated or changed during a price change event. Games can be priced to 800 points until October 22, and current 200 point games will drop automatically to 80 points then as well. October 22 is also the day that Microsoft forces all Indie Games to be developed on XNA Game Studio 3.1. For those wondering, the October 22 date, which is the same day as the release of Windows 7, is purely coincidental, as confirmed by an XNA rep.

Other major changes include the admission of Japanese and German XNA developers to the marketplace, with Japan receiving Indie Games for the first time on August 11. There is also a creator reputation system that might prove helpful in weeding out poorly developed games, and an auto-reminder for customers of Indie Games to be notified when a game has been updated. Finally, creators will be given 50 free Tokens to use for hyping their game or sending duplicates out to reviewers.

It’s a tiny early to see if this is going to make a major change to the success of Indie Games. A much cheaper price, streamlined update system, and a reputation-system to make finding superior developers easier is certainly helpful. Is this enough for you to pay attention to Indie Games?

[Thanks, power-glove!]

Via Destructoid

I was going to write this article and focus on 2K president Christoph Hartmann’s expectation that fewer AAA games will be released in 2009. However, in the same interview he discussed Borderlands, using one of the silliest metaphors I’ve ever heard an executive use. Since I love Borderlands and adore crap metaphors, I’m going to focus on that instead.

“Three or four years ago, we’d a tiny seed. We put it out in the field and wanted to grow an apple tree,” he explains, ridiculously. “We had two nice apples there with The Darkness and BioShock. Then there was the apple called Civilization, which was a tiny bit of an import.

“But now the tree’s going to blossom. It’s going to have more and more fruits, and I think you’ll see that. Borderlands is going to be one of those perfect apples on there.”

So there you go. 2K is apparently going to be full of fruits, and Borderlands is a perfect apple. As if I didn’t want this game badly enough, the knowledge that I have the ability to now bake it into a delicious pie has thoroughly sealed the deal. Seriously, this game is pretty much my most anticipated game of 2009 right now, and I can’t wait to play it.