Speaking at the Develop Conference, Hello Games’ Sean Murray said that they released their game Joe Danger on the PSN instead of the Xbox Live because XBLA is a “slaughter house” for small developers, where “there’s two titles released every week and a lot of those are falling in that 25,000 [units sold] or less category.” That “25,000 category” he sees as line of successful games which soon disappear after launch and don’t sell many more copies.

On the XBLA, Murry claimed, using stats he believed to be realistic but not official, that “47 per cent sold less than 25,000 copies, 23 per cent sold around 100,000 copies, 13 per cent 200,000 copies and 17 per cent more than 200,000.” He went on to say that on the PSN, his game sold 50,000 in its first week and broke even for the company. “Why choose PSN? It was the only way we could self-publish,” said Murry.

He also said that publishers consider XBLA and PSN “the ginger step-child” of digital publishing and aren’t willing to invest in the space. “It’s not to say publishers are shit, but small studios are amazing in this space.”

He said that he’s had conversations with publishers who questioned his games and made suggestions such as: “Name me one popular game with motorbikes”, “we want games that are less about fun right now” and “can Joe be a monkey? We like monkeys”.