Angry Birds Developer Hits Out at Xbox Live, Microsoft

Angry Birds’ developer, Rovio, has hit out at and criticized Xbox Live and Microsoft.

Speaking during an interview today with MCV, franchise manager Peter Vesterbacka explained that Rovio’s Angry Birds won’t release on Xbox Live because of Microsoft’s stubbornness to refuse frequent content updates. Vesterbacka said:

Is that our fault? No, that’s their problem. There is no reason why, when you do digital distribution on console, you couldn’t do frequent updates. It’s just a legacy way of thinking.

He continued:

Look, the console market is important, but it’s also… it’s not dying, but not the fastest growing platform out there. So we don’t see it the way others do. A lot of people in the games industry, they think the ‘real’ games are on consoles. You’re only a ‘real’ games company if you do a big budget game. But we don’t have that inferiority complex.

He carried on:

If the consoles want to stay relevant they have to start mimicking what’s going on around them on app stores, smartphones and online. It’s the only way, because people expect games to stay fresh. If you pay $59 or $69 dollars and you get no updates – but you pay 99 cents for a game in the App Store and get updates every month, then it sets the expectations higher. So the pressure is definitely on those guys.

Angry Birds has exceeded 100 million downloads and is available on the PlayStation 3 via Sony’s minis service.