Xbox Live Arcade Supports Its Indie Community

Do you play indie games? Well of course you do. So do you perhaps buy and play indie games on Xbox Live?

Wait, what, Xbox Live Arcade has an indie games section? Well despite the XNA Game Studio Team’s efforts to promote indie gaming on Xbox Live, the indie games themselves remain discernibly unknown and relatively uncommon among the hard drives of most Xbox consoles.

As such, and in the spirit of giving, as well as a gesture of goodwill to the community, Microsoft and the XNA team have made a few updates to improve the ability of indie games on Xbox Live Arcade to flourish. The changes are:

Higher maximum CCGAME size
Indie game size has been increased to a maximum size of 500mb from the original 150mb. This extra size should add a whole lot of possibility for indie developers.

New limit for 80 point games
The minimum cost of indie games above 50mb but under 150mb (the old limit) has been lowered to $1 from $3 or $5. That might not sound like much of a difference, but when competing with the freeware and lower cost of indie games on iOS and Android, it makes a big difference.

More titles per developer
Indie developers can now host 20 rather than 10 games on the Xbox marketplace. Which rejoice, rejoice means more Minecraft clones and zombie themed games per person.

Now all Microsoft have to do is make the indie games section easier to find.