Microsoft Not Holding Anything on XBLA Back

Develop had a chance to sit down with Xbox Live Arcade’s Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner David Edery to speak about what the process is for a game to be put onto the service and why they are not holding anything back.

“Regardless of the path a developer chooses, once a concept is approved, it generally takes about nine months to get the game on the service,” David explained. “We’ve had games completed in as little as six months, and some that have taken over a year to complete. The vast majority of this time is spent on development and testing.”

When asked why certain games take awhile to appear on the service after completion, David stated, “Rumors of bottlenecks in the XBLA title schedule are precisely that: rumors.”

“Once an XBLA game clears certification, it almost always makes it onto the service right away. In fact, I’m proud to say that in the entire life of the service, we have never held a title for more than a few weeks. We keep the pipeline of approved games reasonably steady precisely so that we never find ourselves in too nasty of a schedule crunch.”

David Edery continued to explain that developers will sometimes choose to delay a game for quality purposes or to prevent it from going up against a similar title. You can read the rest of what David had to say in the link below.