Developer Dan Marshall, founder of Size Five Games and creator of Privates and Ben There, Dan That, has predicted that the Xbox Live Indie Games won't survive the transition to the Xbox 360's rumored successor, nicknamed the Xbox 720 by fans. Marshall has also called upon Microsoft to admit that the channel is a “failure.” Marshall believes Microsoft should look toward the model Steam uses for promoting indie games, which he feels is more successful for all parties involved.

“Set up a store where not *everything* can go on, but there's low enough barriers to entry that there's an amazing selection of games and nothing shit. How hard is that?" Marshall asked. "Surely they can afford to hire someone to look at each game, Google it, find out what people are saying and do some actual personal, human-based Quality Control? I think what's most upsetting about the Xbox 'Indie Games' channel is that it's doing the reputation of the indie games industry a massive disservice.”

Addressing the fate of XBLIG, Marshall said, "I can't see XBLIG surviving to the next Xbox, can you? Microsoft really needs to admit XBLIG has been a failure, and shift to something mid-way between XBLIG and XBLA. "

Widespread Xbox Live Indie Games developer pessimism has been sparked by recent changes to the Xbox 360 dashboard that demoted the Indie Games channel to a much smaller tile. Indie games no longer show up in the New Arrivals section of the Marketplace and must instead be found through a tile named Game Type. Microsoft points out that it provides indie developers with a distribution channel, development tools, and a peer-review system, and that indie developers in turn must be responsible for marketing their own games.

UPDATE: A Microsoft representative has pointed out to us that the Game Marketplace now has an "Indie" tile in the "Games" section.

SOURCE: Privates dev predicts XBLIG won't survive transition from Xbox 360 to Next Xbox [Eurogamer]