Microsoft accelerating Xbox Live update certification

Developers have always complained about the Xbox Live certification process. It's always been a lengthy hoop-jumping process that has held up updates, releases, and is one of the main factors turning developers like Blizzard away from developing MMO's for the console. The ability to push out fast hot-fixes and patches is a necessity, and not having that ability has probably stifled much more than its helped.

But that might be starting to change. Paddy Burns, the chief technology officer at 4J Studios who is developing the XBLA port of Minecraft, spoke to Edge recently about how they are working with Microsoft to change the process, and might be the first developer to eschew much of the lengthy process and provide constant updates.

"Microsoft knows that to do a similar thing that's on PC where they constantly update it, that's a very difficult thing to do on Xbox because you have to go through the full tests..."

"But they are quite keen to move towards that - they do see it as the future, so I think we might be the first to do constant updates."

"I don't think it'll ever come to (no Microsoft testing). I think that there will always be Microsoft testing involved."But the whole turnaround of that testing they're hoping to speed up, so we can maybe roll out every two months. We'll have to see how that goes ... I'm really looking forward to it being updated with patches and new features after it's released."

If Microsoft is willing to loosen the grip, so to speak, on 4J Studios it would really do wonders for them to follow suit with other developers. Especially if we can expect to see (and I'm almost positive we will) Blizzard releasing Diablo III for consoles. And, of course, this opens the door to the MMO experience appearing on consoles as well. Sure there are a lot of other factors to take into consideration, such as a monetization model, but it's certainly a step in that direction and an alleviation of one major hurdle.

[ Source: Edge, CVG ]