Sony fires off another shot at Xbox policies

Thought the “console war” between Microsoft and Sony was cooling off? Think again. Writing on Twitter last night, Adam Boyes of the PlayStation developer relations team fired off a shot at Microsoft’s contentious “launch parity” policy for games released through the company’s independent publishing program ID@Xbox.

Microsoft’s new indie publishing program has drawn the praise of many independent studios, but some have criticized this “launch parity” clause that requires games launch on Xbox One the same day they do on other platforms. This would prevent an indie developer from releasing their game as a timed-exclusive on another platform, like the competing PlayStation 4 or PC.

A Microsoft representative told Edge this week that it will work with indie developers on a “case by case” basis to discuss launch plans, but it hasn’t ended there. Boyes tweeted last night: “In the interest of transparency, I want to share our [developer] clause that lists which platforms you cannot release on.” Attached was the following image.

This image has been re-tweeted 852 times.

Sony has not been shy in criticizing Microsoft’s Xbox policies of late. During E3 2013 last summer, the company released a tongue-in-cheek video poking fun at Microsoft’s used game policy, which the company would reverse just weeks later.

Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch
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