First wave of Xbox One indies to launch in March 2014

The director of Xbox's indie developer programme, ID@Xbox has announced that the first wave of indie offerings will hit the Xbox One early in 2014.

Chris Charla pegged the first round of releases in the first quarter of the year in an comment to Edge.

"I think it will be early in the New Year, in the first three months," said Charla. "I would say closer to the third month. In terms of how many games there will be, it's hard to say, because they're still in development."

ID@Xbox has attracted developers like Vlambeer, Capy and Double Fine but the fact that the games are all still works in progress means Charla hasn't confirmed particular studios and titles. Indeed, the "closer to the third month" comment means we wouldn't be entirely surprised if the releases ended up appearing on console early in the second quarter instead.

The project already provides registered developers with access to the Unity engine but, ultimately, Charla's goal with ID@Xbox is to offer development tools to everyone with an Xbox One -- not just those already interested in developing games -- "from coding a game in C++, to someone who can't code at all using something like Project Spark".