Gamasutra EIC and Independent Games Festival chairman Simon Carless today published a piece piece exploring the continuing challenges for independent developers in the console industry. Carless explains that while the current consoles' capacities for online game distribution make them an easy target for independent developers, the market suffers due to a lack of sufficient support on the part of the manufacturers.

Of the three major home consoles, Microsoft's Xbox 360, with its Xbox Live Arcade service, has seen the greatest number of newly-created downloadable games. Microsoft has also released XNA Game Studio Express effort, which allows users to compile and run code on Xbox 360 for a $99 yearly membership. Theoretically, developers could use an XNA game as a pitch to obtain a Live Arcade contract, though no XNA game has yet to be released commercially.

With titles like thatgamecompany's flOw cropping up on the PlayStation 3's online PlayStation Store, independent developers are gaining a presence on the console. However, as Carless points out, Sony appears to be largely seeking PS3 exclusivity for independent downloadable games, which reduces the financial flexibility and risk mitigation options for studios.

Lastly, Nintendo's online Wii Shop sees more weekly releases than either PlayStation Store or Xbox Live Arcade, but has yet to provide anything beyond retro re-releases. The first original Wii Shop game, System 3's remake of Dennis Caswell's Impossible Mission, is expected sometime this summer. It remains to be seen how common such releases will be.

The splintering of the console market ensures that, regardless of platform, a significant portion of gamers will not have access to console-exclusive games. While major publishers have more leverage--many classic games have been released on two of the three current platforms, and Capcom has announced plans to bring certain new games to both PS3 and Xbox 360--independent developers face more challenges. More and more frequently, independent developers are seeking out deals with major publishers even for downloadable games; traditionally, the ability to self-publish online games has been lauded as a potential boon for independent devs.

Arbitrary file size limits can also hamper cross-platform development of online-distributed games. "There are some file size limitations that don't dovetail well with what we've currently got on PS3 and Xbox 360," said Capcom's Christian Svensson on Wii, earlier this year. Xbox Live Arcade games must abide by a file size limitations as well, which was recently raised to 150MB. By contrast, PlayStation Store game size limits are several times higher than those of their Xbox Live Arcade counterparts.