Oh-so-innovative Microsoft launches app store for Xbox

“Microsoft will let independent developers sell video games for the Xbox 360 console — and keep most of the profits — beginning this holiday season, the company said Tuesday,” Barbara Ortutay reports for The Associated Press.

“Microsoft said it will let game makers who are members of its $99-a-year XNA Creators Club submit their games for peer review. If they pass, the game creators can sell their work on the Xbox Live Marketplace, the console’s online store,” Ortutay reports. Microsoft will let “game makers pick a price tag between 200 and 800 ‘Microsoft Points’ for their titles. Eight hundred of these points are roughly worth $10.”

MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft uses “points” instead of real money so that there are always “leftovers” which encourages pigeons to continue buying more points. More importantly, it’s also a very nice free upfront loan. You “buy” points from Microsoft – meaning you give Microsoft real money for nothing – and they invest it and generate interest for themselves until you eventually send/receive/setup/test/repack/return your six Red-Ring-of-Death’ed Xbox units, get one that seems to work, however temporary that may be, and eventually “spend” your points on “Drake of the 99 Dragons.” How nice of Xbox pigeons to loan their hard-earned dollars to Microsoft, a $236 billion company. To Recap: Microsoft’s “points” are designed to confuse consumers and generate interest income from “leftover” amounts. That’s exactly why “1 Microsoft Point” doesn’t equal “1 U.S. Cent.” The more suckers Microsoft can dupe into this Microsoft Points scheme, the more “leftovers” they get.

MacDailyNews Note: Apple uses real currency. No left overs. No “points” scheme. Just a single, simple, straight-up, honest transaction. Because they aren’t unethical greedy bastards.

Ortutay continues, “Developers will receive up to 70% of the total revenue their games generate. Microsoft will keep the rest, though its cut will be more than 30% if a game is prominently featured — which should mean it would sell better.”

Full article here.

Guy Dixon reports for vnunet.com, “‘Nobody has ever done this before,’ said Boyd Multerer, general manager of XNA, Microsoft’s game-development system. ‘We have high hopes that it will be a good business. We have no proof. This is what happens when you do something that’s never been seen before.'”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sam Spade” for the heads up.]

MacDailyNews Take: “Nobody has ever done this before?” Sheesh. Shameless Derivativesoft even copied Apple’s App Store split percentages.