Microsoft to allow self-publishing on Xbox One

In case you missed the news last night… In what was originally supposed to a surprise announcement at Gamescom, Microsoft last night confirmed that their indie and self-publishing policies for Xbox One games were in the process of being revised.

Marc Whitten and the Xbox Wire news site confirmed a few details, though stopped short of providing the full picture. Long story short, Microsoft will allow self-publishing for indie developers and provide access to many of the advanced Xbox One features and services, and there will be some way to use a retail Xbox One as a dev kit.

Read on for the official annoucement below. Stay tuned for more details from Gamescom which begins on August 21st.

Today, we saw some news reports speculating on our future plans for independent development support. Marc Whitten, Chief Product Officer, Xbox, offered this statement:

?Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox Live. This means self-publishing. This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox Live. We’ll have more details on the program and the timeline at gamescom in August.?

We look forward to sharing many more details with you at gamescom. Stay tuned to Xbox Wire for the latest, accurate information on this program.