Microsoft is celebrating ten years of the ID@Xbox program this week, and something we've learned in the process is that the ID@Xbox team is trying to make it easier for independent developers to create disc versions of their games.
In a post from Chris Charla (ID@Xbox director) yesterday on the official Xbox website, Charla mentioned that ID@Xbox developers can make physical versions of their games with only a "low minimum order" of units required, and this program will be rolling out to more developers in the near future.
"Ironically, we’ve even enabled retail disc publishing for developers in ID@Xbox, Xbox’s digital self-publishing program. This retail program is still in the pilot phase with a limited number of partners, but developers can make physical versions of their games with only a low “minimum order quantity” of physical units from Xbox.
We look forward to rolling this out to more broad participation in the near future (devs, please watch for our April newsletter for more info here)."
In theory, this means plenty of Xbox indie games could be getting physical versions in the future, although it obviously depends on whether the developers / publishers involved think it's worth the investment.
It's nice to see Xbox attempting to make this process easier for ID@Xbox partners in any case, and hopefully it means we won't just have to rely on the likes of Limited Run for niche physical releases in the future.