Over the past couple of years, Steam has been expanding its line-up with the debut of Early Access games. These games serve as “still in development” versions of upcoming games, providing players the opportunity to try out something before the full version comes out. Although its had its share of issues, a lot of games, such as Rust and Day Z, have managed to rack up impressive sales – and that’s something both Sony and Microsoft have noticed.
Talking with Gamasutra, Sony publisher and developer relations VP Adam Boyes stated that early access games is “one of the massive conversations we have internally.” However, there are certain obstacles in the way, such as clarifying that a game is still in development. “We don’t want somebody to stumble across that title and expect a full product, and have a negative experience.”
He continued, “We obviously have our tech requirement checklist that people have to adhere to. So we’re internally discussing, what does that list look like What are the caveats Stuff like this. So it’s still a project that a lot of minds are considering. No details yet, but it’s something on the top of my mind every day.”
Meanwhile, over at Microsoft, ID@Xbox manager Chris Charla explained that such a program is “something developers have been asking for, and we are listening really closely to developers.” However, he didn’t confirm the program for Xbox One just yet, and also has concerns about putting an unfinished game in front of players. “There’s a lot of heavy deep thinkers, experts, PHDs working on these problems at Xbox every day – not just for the Xbox store, but for Windows Store and Windows Phone. Our goal is to have a rational marketplace, where good games are visible and sell well.”
We may see some sort of early access program on consoles in the near future — do you think that’s a good idea, or one that’s not ready to be released yet
Source: Ars Technica
