Chris Charla on Cuphead, PUBG, and Mixer

With so much happening around the ID@Xbox label, we got the chance to sit down with Chris Charla, head of ID@Xbox, to get his thoughts on Cuphead, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and Mixer.

ID@Xbox has had massive success over the past year, launching well-received titles like popular survival game ARK: Survival Evolved. A more recent success story for ID@Xbox is the title Cuphead, known for its intense difficulty. Although many have claimed the game to be too difficult, Chris Charla begs to differ:

"The game is so well designed and so tight, it's so fair that when I die I know that it's my fault. I'm going to be playing this game for months before I beat it, but I know I can beat it." He went on to add that, "it is hard, but it's not hard in an unfair way, it's just challenging."

Given some of the popular titles released this year, it's fair to say Cuphead has held its own in terms of sales, pushing past the one million mark.

The global PC hit PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds will be making its way exclusively to Xbox (although that may be a timed deal), with Microsoft wearing the mantle of publisher.

Despite Bluehole originally going through the ID@Xbox programme, Microsoft felt that it "made more sense" to publish the game on console.

Charla said: "When we saw how big the game was, and they saw how big the game was and saw what Microsoft could bring in terms of helping the game come to Xbox, it made sense for Microsoft to publish it."

When asked about what he considers a challenge for ID@Xbox, Charla expressed his excitement at the opportunities the streaming platform Mixer has to offer. Not only this, but its ability to offer developers integration for "Mixer interactivity tools".

Mixer now offers viewers interactivity with streamers "so that folks watching the stream can, in real time, make changes to the experience," which in his own words give streamers the ability to create "more meaningful interactions with their viewers."