Xbox Live Indie Games get reduced minimum pricing, increase in file size

Xbox Live Indie Games developers have something to cheer about as Microsoft has addressed a handful of concerns the community has been facing.

Projects may now be sized at a maximum of 500 megabytes, up from the 150 megabyte limit previously placed on games developed on the XNA-fueled platform. Developers have also been given the greenlight to host more projects than ever before, seeing the limit increase from 10 titles to 20.

Microsoft's biggest position shift is in price, the company revealed in a blog post earlier today. Whereas games has previously been priced according to their actual file size, which anything exceeding 50MB forced to be priced between the $3 and $5 range, Microsoft has now lowered the minimums to $1 for any game under 150MB. This change will hopefully create a bigger market of titles across the Xbox Live Marketplace and on the Windows Phone 7 platform.

Of course, this all hinges on the ability to actually find the Indie Games section of the Marketplace, which Microsoft has done a good job of hiding.

[Image from the indie Xbox dashboard spoof game 'Game Type']