Very recently news broke on The Gunstringer’s shift to retail distribution and little was known why Twisted Pixel suddenly changed their focus. A recent blog post on their home site explains what happened and what fans of Twisted Pixel, Kinect, or even just The Gunstringer can expect to be provided with the beefier release. Apparently the beloved development studio was approached by Microsoft with a proposition: go retail and get more time for polish and content. If Comic Jumper was any indicator, Twisted Pixel loves to stuff their game with references and art and other interesting tidbits for their followers and everyone else that plays their games. The team had this to say about their goals regarding the switch to retail:

  • – We have more time to make the game super awesome and amazingly polished!
  • – We have way more space on the disc to cram with unlockables and extra content. Our development servers have already been straining to keep the massive influx of content in one place!
  • – You can pre-order it and have it delievered to your house or work desk, which may even be quicker than you downloading gigabytes of game once you get home!
  • – You can use the money in your Xbox wallet to buy Ms. Splosion Man!

So there’s plenty to look forward with The Gunstringer going retail, though we’ll miss its XBLA-goodness. However, the team mentions that “for most of this time, we haven’t been making a “Kinect” game or a “XBLA” game, we’ve just been making the most awesome game that we could in the time we had”, so perhaps retail was in the back of their minds all along. Either way, we’ve still go Ms. Splosionman to look forward to and we’ll wish The Gunstringer well as it rides off into the sunset of retail.