Another piece of the last generation of Xbox gaming will be coming to an end. In an email that was posted to the Xbox Live Indie Games forum, titled “XBLIG Sunsetting”, details were revealed that outlined a two year plan that will gradually close down the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace in September of 2017.
The goal behind closing down the marketplace is to segue creators over to the next generation platforms to develop games for Xbox One and Windows 10 as Microsoft continues its plan to eventually cease all support for the Xbox 360.
This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. The Xbox One will be entering the third year of its life span, and the Xbox 360 has already been supported by Microsoft longer than the original Xbox. With this announcement, it can be expected that support for the Xbox 360 will last until at least 2017.
Xbox’s open platform for independent development began back in 2006, letting people from all over the world, even with little or no experience, have the opportunity to get their hands on some of the same tools that professional game developers use. Since then, other game engines, like Unity, Unreal and GameMaker, have further opened the door for students and hobbyists to try their hand at game development.
Some of the most popular games to come from the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace include Avatar Golf, Beat Hazard and Yet Another Zombie Defense. You still have some time, but after September 2017, you will no longer be able to purchase any of the games in the marketplace.
