Even the most ardent Xbox fan should admit that Microsoft made major mistakes with the Xbox One – errors compounded by the fact that Sony has played a strong all-around game so far this generation. Heck, even Microsoft itself has, in many ways, owned up to its bad decisions. Hurling Xbox Live Arcade into a dumpster behind the Xbox campus isn’t solely responsible for Microsoft’s distant (but still very successful) second-place position, but it is a blunder that hurts the console, just a little bit, every day and every week.

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“ Killing XBLA has proven to be a terrible mistake.

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“ Why the heck would anyone want to click on something they’ve never heard of?

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“ XBLA titles on 360 all had free, playable trial versions. This, too, is gone on Xbox One.

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“ Sony has the high-profile indies in its pocket.

“ I’d like to see the Xbox braintrust reinstitute Xbox Live Arcade.

In short, Microsoft should have never abandoned Xbox Live Arcade. Braid , Shadow Complex, and Castle Crashers. Microsoft even made sales pushes, such as offering $10 back when you bought all of the Summer of Arcade games.When launching the Xbox One, however, Microsoft’s edict was “games are games,” and so Xbox Live Arcade was quietly killed. This has proven to be a terrible mistake. thousands of development kits are in creators’ hands , has completely lost the mindshare battle to Sony’s indie program. I see several reasons for this. For starters, there’s no rhyme or reason to the ID@Xbox release schedule. Games simply drop with zero fanfare, hype, or, quite frankly, awareness. Sometimes on Tuesdays. Occasionally on Wednesdays. Maybe a Friday every now and again. And even if they’re promoted on the Xbox One Dashboard, no one knows a thing about these indie titles (even us!), so why the heck would anyone want to click on something they’ve never heard of?Look at Inside (from the makers of Limbo) and Cuphead. These two games are, to me, the most exciting, promising, and high-profile games currently in development within the ID@Xbox program. And yet we’ve seen each of them exactly once. That’s not going to help anyone get pumped up for what my gut tells me will be two incredible titles.On this note, Microsoft rarely allows games media sites like IGN or YouTube influencers a chance to preview ID@Xbox titles, minimizing any chance we might get excited about some of the games and in turn share our excitement with you, our readers and viewers.Back in the Xbox 360 days, media outlets had consoles called debug kits that gave us access to Partner.net, a sort of “shadow” version of Xbox Live that developers could upload content to for testing and development purposes. Oftentimes, preview versions of XBLA games would pop up there, allowing us to find and flag the best ones for future coverage interest. Xbox One’s infrastructure is different, so this is no longer possible.Furthermore, there’s nowhere for ID@Xbox games to live on the Xbox One, because there is no Xbox Live Arcade. They just float aimlessly among everything else, including the Mortal Kombat X behemoths of the world, with no curation or organization. They’re effectively homeless. Parity Clause , which effectively means developers can only release their titles on Xbox One if they haven't already been released on other consoles. Microsoft continues to insist it’s not such a big deal, and that developers should just talk to them instead of assuming they can’t put their game on Xbox One without concessions. It makes me ask Microsoft: is leaving your developers to assume and wonder really the healthiest attitude for your platform? Perhaps being more proactive, both privately and publicly, might help close the gap between Sony’s indie library and yours.Make no mistake, by the way: the gap is enormous – in mindshare as well as raw numbers. And it’s probably because Sony has the high-profile indies in its pocket: Tim Schafer/Double Fine (Grim Fandango Remastered, Broken Age, Day of the Tentacle Special Edition), Michel Ancel (Wild), Hello Games (No Man’s Sky), Jonathan Blow (The Witness), etc. With all due respect to their creators, none of these are console-selling killer apps on their own, but taken as a whole, it’s certainly a factor that’s helped to tip the scales in Sony’s favor for a gamer looking to upgrade to a new-gen console from their PS3 or 360.I believe this can all be a reality, especially since Microsoft has clearly refocused itself as it relates to the Xbox One ever since Phil Spencer took over as Head of Xbox just over a year ago. But there’s still work to be done. The middle class of games has been dead for some time now, meaning the indies matter more than ever. Resurrecting Xbox Live Arcade won’t make Xbox One the best-selling console tomorrow, but it’d be a hell of a start.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan , catch him on Podcast Unlocked , and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.