Is “indie” app development for Xbox 360 possible?

Question

Microsoft has introduced App Hub as a publishing portal for WP7 and Xbox 360. However, for the Xbox 360, there only seems to be support for adding and Xbox Live Indie Game project. Given the recent introduction of apps and the app marketplace on Xbox 360 I would expect the option of creating apps as well.

Is it possible, or will it be possible, to create and publish apps for the Xbox 360 without a full-on professional Xbox development partnership with Microsoft?

Answer 1

As far as I know there is no official information on this, but there have been some rumors.

Microsoft is said to plan a version of Silverlight 5 running on the Xbox 360 and with this they may open up the platform some more. Look at this article for instance: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Free-To-Play-Apps-Xbox-360-microtransaction-silverlight-5,news-10800.html

But this is still only a rumor, Microsoft has not even announced Silverlight for Xbox in public yet.

That there will be a version of Silverlight for the Xbox is quite obvious though, look at the documentation for the INotifyPropertyChanged interface for instance. Here the supported platforms lists the Xbox 360 :-)

This does not fully answer your questions, but I think it is the best answer there is. Microsoft will probably announce a new platform (Silverlight) for developing apps on the Xbox 360 quite soon. This new platform will probably allow for more ways to publish apps, but that has not been confirmed.