PlayStation and Xbox consoles have always been compared to one another. Now indie developer Iain Garner has come out to vent their frustration over getting their games on PlayStation and subsequently praise Xbox Game Pass, which his game SINNER was a part of Xbox Game Pass.
Iain Garner is a co-founder of the indie game studio Neon Doctrine known for games such as Lost Castle, Project Atheia, Simulacra, and Hazel Sky. While Xbox Game Pass has plenty of indie games included in its subscription, and Neon Doctrine has had a game as part of the service before, Garner says is up to Xbox what games get added and that he would love for all of Neon Doctrine's titles to be a part of it.
Garner's statements come via a Twitter thread that began with Garner saying that he was mad enough to burn bridges and that he was going to talk about "Platform X" which he later clarified was a console without Xbox Game Pass that wasn't Nintendo. So, it's pretty clearly PlayStation. He then goes on to complain that PlayStation doesn't give developers the tools necessary to manage their games and that a game's success in the store depends completely on how much PlayStation likes the game with developers having few options to make it better for themselves. Garner's complaints come after Cyberpunk 2077 just returned to the store with PlayStation reportedly communicating very little to the game's developers.
Later Garner started a second thread to answer questions that he was getting following his initial tweets. In the second thread, he says that every game developed at Neon Doctrine is pitched to every platform to see how interested in it the platforms are. He also adds that the studio launches everything on Steam and Switch because doing so is the simplest and both platforms provide dependable revenue. Garner then said that he would love for all of the company's games to make it onto Xbox Game Pass because of how well the service helped their title SINNER. Reports of Xbox Game Pass helping games sell copies have become rather common, including for bigger titles like Square Enix's Outriders.
Garner's sentiments and frustrations over working with PlayStation's systems were largely echoed by other indie devs on both of his Twitter threads, so it definitely seems his complaints are pretty universal. Many of those same developers also echoed Garner's desire to be included more frequently in Xbox Game Pass, saying that the program has helped out their included games as well. With how beneficial Xbox Game Pass has reportedly been for developers, and with how much Xbox is investing in Xbox Game Pass, it will be very interesting to see where the program goes in the future.