Roblox games coming soon to Xbox One
Roblox, which runs a platform for youths to create and play their own video games, said Thursday it will expand its presence to the Xbox One in December.
The San Mateo company’s app will appear in the Xbox One Store, giving owners of the home video game console access to a source of free-to-play games.
But Roblox game creators — mainly children ages 8 to 18 — also generate revenue for themselves from sales of ingame items like power boosts or custom characters. Some make enough to pay their way through college.
So getting their games in front of millions of Xbox One owners opens a potentially lucrative market that’s been tough for independent game makers to crack because it’s been controlled by bigger game companies.
In an interview, Roblox CEO and founder David Baszucki called the Xbox deal “the democratization of game creation.”
“As a game developer, getting your game onto a console is probably the most difficult,” he said.
Roblox has about 15 million games created by its core audience of 8- to 18-year-olds. Roblox, which provides the game development engine, network and support, has about 15 million monthly visitors.
The games can be played on PC and Macintosh computers and Android and iOS devices. But this is the first time some have been available on a console.
Roblox software engineers had to first tune the platform to accommodate different display screens and game controllers to allow the games to work on a console. When they did the same to get PC games to work on mobile devices, the creators instantly saw a boost.
“Many of the top PC games ended up being on top on phones, with the developers having to do zero work,” Baszucki said. “We want them to build a game once and push it to all platforms.”
About 20 Roblox games will be available initially, with a tentative release date of Dec. 3, and more will be added next year. Roblox will appear as an app in the Xbox One Store.