It’s a sad day for Xbox 360 owners, as its self-publishing program known as Xbox Live Indie Games is coming to a close.
From September 9th, the service stopped accepting sign-ups, as Microsoft begins the “sunsetting process”.
The launch of ID@Xbox has pretty much shown us there was no place for XBLIG, but it’s presence brought us some real delights such as Mount Your Friends, ApocZ and Shark Attack Deathmatch.
The good news though is that you’ll still be able to download and play these titles, but no new titles will be coming to the platform now.
“Over the next two years we’ll be working with game conservationists and creators to preserve the legacy of XBLIG content”, said Chris Charla, head of ID@Xbox.
“We’ve known the end was coming for a while, and thankfully two years notice is plenty of time for those still in progress” said XNA and XBLIG developer Andy Dunn of ZBuffer. “Many of the XNA people have moved onto Unity, Unreal and other gaming tools. The XNA style of programming lives on cross platform with MonoGame for those who wish to continue, and the knowledge we all got is still a valuable skill.”
This can only mean good things for ID@Xbox now.