Indie games on XBox live arcade.

[Jamie W]

Does anyone have any experience of getting their indie game on to XBox live arcade?

What's required to do this (other than a 'suitable' game).

I'm thinking along the lines of special technical requirements?

[Applewood]

If your source is DX9 shader based, it'll pretty much run right away.

There's some nasty technical stuff I'm not allowed to mention that makes your rendering a little more complicated, but the speed of this thing is truly ridiculous. If your game runs nicely on ANY pc, it'll run faster on the box even with this layer bolted on. Well, assuming your're renderbound on the pc. If you're cpu bound then theres a few of processors you can split the load over.

There's also what feels like an endless swathe of console and live integration to work through - it's a very feature-rich environment. It's all fairly straightforward though, just don't expect it to go quick, especially for your first try -there's a LOT of it.

None of the above is a prerequisite to seeing your game run though - this stuff is about getting it submitted. You'll see some on-screen results fairly fast.

I reckon you could get your first port ready for pre-submission within a month or two (full time), which in my experience is about how long it takes to get an email answered. :(

[Jonas]

Heres a few off the top of my head on the technical side:

Needs to support HD (720P And 480i minimum)
Needs to have a "safe area" all the way around your screen I forget what it is, like 10% away from the edges.
Of course supporting the controller which for some games can been a bit of a rework, you'd be amazed how much we take for granted with mice. :)

If your are going to localize your game for foreign language, start thinking about how thats going to work.

Then there is the standard services and features of all arcade games like leader boards and achievements and what not.

Addressing issues with TVs can be a real challenge. You can get a sneak peak what your game looks like on a TV by just running it out a video card with a TV out. If you can get your game playable at couch distance on the cruddiest TV you can find, you'll have a head start. I think we picked one up at a yard sale ;)

Of course the inverse is true too, so you want to find a nice range of TVs to test on so it looks as good as it can on all levels.

[Jamie W]

Paul and Jonas, thank you both for your replies.

I'm thinking my game is a long way off from making it to XBox live, so I want to develop it in such a way as to make life easy (well, easier) for myself, if and when I come to do a conversion to XBox live.

Is localisation a requirement for XBox live games, if so, which languages?

I'm also curious about the screen resolution thing, is that set by the game or by the user?

Thanks once again.

[Applewood]

Standard EFIGS for the translation. English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. They say you have to support all those squiggly languages too like Mandarin Chinese, but they usually waive that as soon as you shit yourself ime.

Screen modes are really 1024x768 for 4:3 displays or 1280x720 for widescreen (the box tells you which to pick from). The 1024x768 isn't a fixed rule and it does indeed support many modes, but we just stick to those two for convenience.