Indie console success due to XBLA, says Behemoth

John Baez claims indies owe their success on current generation consoles to XBLA.

A member of Castle Crashers studio Behemoth, Baez claims that in terms of Indie console games, Microsoft has handily beaten the competition.

I think without a doubt the indie console community would not exist as it does today if Xbox Live Arcade had been dropped after the original Xbox iteration," he told the Official Xbox Magazine.

"No other console hardware manufacturer has had the success of downloadable games that XBLA has had and many smaller developers have shared in that success."

Castle Crashers has been a runaway success, selling over 2 million copies on XBLA.

Some have criticized XBLA, saying it forces developers to jump through too many hoops and is prohibitively expensive.

For Baez however, it seems success is the true measure of a platform’s potential.