Xbox Live Indie Game Devs Angry At 360 Dashboard Marginalization

The Xbox 360 Dashboard update earlier this week has split opinion among gamers, many of whom would like to be able to roll back to the previous version, but some game developers are also upset by Microsoft's changes.  Xbox Live Indie Games have been shifted to the "Speciality Shops" section of the dashboard, behind the Avatar Marketplace, in a move that developers are saying will have a negative impact on sales and gamer awareness.

Meanwhile the update has also removed much of the information about Indie Games titles when downloaded, reducing their pages to mere play/delete options.  Previously there could be custom icons and box art, along with the description of the title from the Marketplace, depending on what the developers had provided.

The general consensus on Microsoft's justification for the changes is that the company was seeing little return on the Indie Games section, and so decided to shift it so as to reduce competition with Xbox Live Arcade titles.

[via Joystiq]