Dean Hall has reiterated that he’s like to release DayZ standalone on Xbox Live through Xbox One, but he has yet to see a digital distribution model from the firm.
Speaking with Gamasutra, Hall said he would be happy to release the game on any indie-friendly console, but Xbox One’s digital model “doesn’t exist.”
“Where is the digital distribution model? That’s what I want to see,” he said. “It hasn’t been in any of the presentations. If we’re taking how XBLA works now and translating it again, that’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. The most awesome place to put your indie titles is on XBLA. It’s just begging for indie titles. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I want someone to explain to me why it’s like that.”
Hall said DayZ is “about digital distribution,” as there’s no point in doing retail. Plus, Bohemia Interactive is self-sufficient enough to self-publish – something the XBL service does not allow.
“We put it on there; people buy it, low price,” said Hall. “The consumer ends up getting hurt by just having a publisher for no apparent reason. It blows my mind. It just seems so obvious. I like the console. It’s a good console. DayZ is great when it has more players. The more players we can get in DayZ, the better experience we can get for everybody.
“From my perspective, Sony are delivering on that. And I’ve developed with them before, when I was at Sidhe Interactive. They have done a complete 180. And the first people to tell me that were the CCP guys: ‘Look, you need to think about this stuff.'”
While Hall said he’s a bit unsure over the requirement of a PlayStation Plus subscription being needed for online play, he’s taking a wait and see approach to how things are handled once PS4 is released.
“We have to see whether Sony delivers. The sun doesn’t shine out of their arse — I’m definitely not saying that. In terms of indie, there is a digital distribution strategy there. So let’s see one from Microsoft, and then I’ll be happy,” he said.
A console version is inevitable but the DayZ team won’t start on it until the PC standalone release is finished – and they have an idea of when that will be, they just aren’t saying.
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