Xbox One disappointment echoes out loud

With the mystical next-generation dust finally settling, many developers have taken to social networks to bemoan their disappointment at the Xbox One.

Many indie developers especially took issue with the announcement this week, primarily because they were informed they would not be able to publish to the Xbox One.

A few choice tweets from some of the best-known indie kids out there illustrate the feeling of most, I think; take this one from Brian Provinciano, creator or Retro City Rampage.

“’No self-publishing’ doesn’t just hinder developers. A lot of publishers must go to BIGGER publishers to be able to publish on Xbox.”

Thomas Blithell, who made popular indie title Thomas Was Alone, had a slightly more biting remark.

“not that I’ll ever sell well enough to make a blip on MS’s radar, but somewhere, the next Minecraft is being made, for another platform.”

The guy who made Duke Nukem, George Broussard, also had something to say on the subject.

“Microsoft you *must* prioritise a low friction indie self publishing path. Otherwise you hand Sony games, devs and $.”

You might well be thinking this is just up-and-comers throwing their toys, but even those who have had massive mainstream success aren’t impressed by Microsoft’s decisions.

Tim Schafer, best known as the founder of Double Fine productions and the inventor of Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series, had this to say:

“Indie developers cannot self-publish on Xbox One...Booo! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BoooOOOoooOooooo! Boo!” Simple, but effective.

Slightly more optimistic, but with a realistic attitude, are the people working at Avalanche Studios, who are currently working on developing for both consoles.

Chief technical officer Linus Blomberg says the Playstation 4 is the more powerful of the two, but it’s too early to say if that will make it the ‘best’ console.

“The Playstation 4 environment is definitely more mature currently, so Microsoft has some catching up to do. But I’m not too concerned about that as they traditionally have been very good in that area," he says.

"The specs on paper would favour the PS4 over the Xbox One in terms of raw power, but there are many other factors involved so we’ll just have to wait and see a bit longer before making that judgment.”

What do you guys think? Has Microsoft shot itself in the foot? Or are we all panicking a bit too early?