Hot on the heels of our report on the Indie Games marketplace, Microsoft has decided that it’s high time to throw those guys a bone. In a post titled “Happy New Year, Xbox LIVE Indie Games!”, the XNA Game Studio Team Blog has outlined some exciting changes have been made to the App Hub and Market. First of all, game package size is being bumped up from 150MB to 500MB, which is a massive increase. In addition, up until now games over 50MB had to cost at least 240 MSP. Now any game up to 150MB will be able to be priced at the low, low cost of 80 MSP. Finally, the number of titles that a single developer can put on the market has now jumped from 10 to 20.

The response on the forums from developers seems to be mixed. While some are excited by the increase in games allowed from a developer, others argue that this will just result in more shovelware. The general consensus seems to be that while these are positive changes, they are not the things that matter most to developers, such as online leaderboards. It’ll be interesting to see what else changes in the coming year as more and more people discover the Indie Games Marketplace.

Source: XNA Game Studio Team Blog