Vlambeer signs up for ID@Xbox

Indie developer Rami Ismail has announced that his studio, Vlambeer (Luftrausers), has signed up to Microsoft's recently announced indie initiative, ID@Xbox.

In his blog, where he discusses the relationship between indies and platform holders, Ismail revealed his thoughts on the recent indie-centric announcements made by Microsoft: "Sony is doing great, we've signed up for ID@Xbox and we'll continue talking to Nintendo."

"It's [ID@Xbox] something we've been talking about with Microsoft for a while now and something I feel is a huge leap in the right direction," wrote the developer. "I still have reservations about some details that we hadn't heard of before: launch parity for being allowed to release a game is still a bit of a strange notion: simply being allowed to launch on a platform does not mean that developers will accept such demands if the competition does not have them. If anything, launch parity excludes developers that are more comfortable with releasing on PlayStation platforms first."

He continued: "Only allowing console-published developers to release a game on Xbox means that indies are basically forced to go through either Microsoft Game Studios or - ironically - PlayStation to be able to launch on the platform. I caught up with Chris Charla today at gamescom and he reassured me some of these limitations are temporary or guided by hardware constraints, which is reassuring."

The studio's latest game, Wasteland Kings, was one of the many games announced during Sony's pre-Gamescom conference in Cologne last week.