The Xbox Ally is here, and it's pretty good.
While the Xbox Ally X is a $1000 powerhouse, many might be considering the more affordable, but less powerful, Xbox Ally base model. The regular Xbox Ally is comparable to the Steam Deck in power, but frustratingly, the Xbox ecosystem on PC is devoid of quality gaming software that actually runs well on it. A lot of the time, you may find yourself on Steam to access those types of games, even if you're trying to get the most out of Xbox Play Anywhere's cross-platform functionality.
That's where independent developers like New Blood Interactive are beginning to step in. Prolific on Steam, New Blood Interactive was instrumental in coining the "boomer shooter" genre, delivering retro-style FPS gameplay with a modern twist across games like Dusk and Ultrakill. The team is bringing its catalog to Xbox Play Anywhere over the coming months.
It all starts with Blood West — which is a bloody Western-gothic take on a STALKER-style immersive sim formula, launching on Xbox platforms on October 16, 2025.
Recently, I was lucky enough to catch up with New Blood CEO Dave Oshry to learn about what indie publishing with Microsoft is like these days. I've written before about how Microsoft needs to do a mountain of work to get indie developers interested in the Xbox ecosystem, particularly so on PC.
I'd always suspected that bureaucracy was a huge pain point for developers, having heard whispers as such over the years, but Oshry didn't mince words about the uphill battles it can be for studios even as prolific as New Blood Interactive.
"It's been a huge pain in the a--," Oshry says. "A big reason we didn't do it until now is just because getting set up on Microsoft was such a pain in the a--. The ID@Xbox team has been great, going back and forth via email and things like that. But, just signing up, getting all the paperwork done — there were points where things would just get stuck for no reason, we'd not hear back. And we'll be like, well, f--- it, we just have other things to do."
Oshry also noted that layoffs have potentially impacted the process here. I've personally heard from people who were unceremoniously laid off this past summer from Microsoft's indie publishing department, ID@Xbox, despite having been personally responsible for millions of dollars in revenue.
"It's gotten better, I think, but there's also been a lot of layoffs," Oshry says. "You'd be working with someone who's really cool and who helps push things along, then one day the email would bounce back. It's like 'oh, they're not there anymore.' So it's a lot of stuff like that. It's a pain. The actual dev is not hard, getting the Xbox Dev Kits and things like that, the development part is the easy part. It's the bureaucracy that's the hard part. Web pages that take 30 seconds to load when you try to update your tax information and stuff like that."
Steam has become an incredibly mature platform over the past couple of decades. Still, it's hardly as if Microsoft didn't have opportunities to match it when it comes to publishing and independent access.
Steam has robust tools to help developers engage directly with its audience. On the Xbox PC app, you can't even comment or reply on games or share content with the broader Xbox community. For developers, the lack of control over their games within the Xbox and Xbox PC ecosystem seems to be an ongoing pain point.
"There's so much red tape, compared to Steam," Oshry remarked. "On Steam, you can do anything instantly. You can manage your own store pages, your own discounts. If we want to do launch discounts, people expect that now, 10% off with a little green tag, thank you for buying day one. You can't do that on Xbox unless you email someone, have them approve it, it takes like three weeks to get a discount through, bleh."
"Even on Nintendo, I can schedule our own discounts and name them whatever I want. On Steam, they have a whole dashboard for discounts. But on PlayStation and Xbox, it's still very like, you have to ask someone, submit a ticket. It's that kind of stuff that makes it a pain in the a-- for indie devs. We're used to working very quickly."
Now ... with Xbox Play Anywhere, and the Xbox Ally handheld, we were like this is a good enough reason to put our stuff on Xbox.
Dave Oshry, CEO, New Blood Interactive
Oshry also remarked that Xbox Game Pass is an "awesome deal" for consumers, but as a developer, he had some reservations. It was ultimately Xbox Play Anywhere and the Xbox Ally that got the team interested in finally jumping on board.
"Especially for us, [Xbox Game Pass] is a weird proposition. It sucks because you want people to see your games. Unless you're on Game Pass, nobody is gonna see your indie game. So that's why we didn't do anything for so long. Now ... with Xbox Play Anywhere, and the Xbox Ally handheld, we were like This is a good enough reason to put our stuff on Xbox."
Microsoft says it has paid out billions of dollars via ID@Xbox on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox PC over the last few years. With opportunities to curate games for handhelds targeting specific devices and use cases, whether it's cloud, the Xbox Ally, or beyond — Microsoft has a big chance to democratize independent publishing, improve discoverability, and grow the ecosystem all up.
Throughout the rest of the interview on YouTube, Dave Oshry remarked upon New Blood Interactive's inspirations, corporately-built AAA games, the future for New Blood, optimism, as well as criticism for the Xbox ecosystem, and much, much more. Be sure to check it out above or over here, and be sure to check out Blood West below.
A huge thank you to Dave Oshry for joining us!
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