Self publishing as the name suggests is distributing your game yourself, backing it up with your own money. Remember Doom, Wolfenstein; all these games were self published, with the boys who made them, also distributing and selling them. While self publishing was the norm in the 90s, it slowly died off as the cost of making a game increased. Now we have huge multi million dollar publishers (EA, Activison, Ubisoft), who do it for different development houses.
As time moved on and digital distribution came into play (Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Steam). It became cheaper to put your games out, but still out of reach for individual “made in a garage” games. With the advent of next gen consoles, we look at the possibility of self-publishing becoming feasible again.
Microsoft:
Not much changes here. If you want to develop a game for the XBox Live(360 or One), you have to sign a 3 game deal with Microsoft. This translates to churning out 3 games in 2 years whether they be multi-platform or exclusive. Alternately, you can hand over publishing rights to Microsoft and they would publish it for you (Mass Effect-1 is a good example). This however can be pretty expensive taking into account the royalty fees, certification fees, and the distribution fees. This doesn’t even include the patching fees (fees levied for creating a patch update for your game) which can be in the range of $40,000 per patch. So if you don’t have that kind of money, and you can’t find a publisher, XBox Live Indie Games is the only place for you to go. Indie Games section lets you put out your game at a very cheap rate, but their reach is far less than most Arcade titles.
Sony:
For this generation, Sony (at first impression at least) is pulling out all the stops to encourage indie developers. Not only were independent games in spotlight at Sony’s E3 press conference, but their policy regarding them, were surprisingly relaxed. They have removed the concept approval part of their submission process (Xbox, Steam and even Apple follow it). They also mentioned that they would be supporting indie developers by giving them free dev kits, waiving off patch fees and other such fees, making it a much more viable option. Remember the cost of publishing applies here as well, and I don’t know of any indie category on the PlayStation.
Nintendo:
The 3rd king in gaming is also slowly opening upto 3rd party developers. Wii U’s latest deals with Unity Technology means that Unity Engine will be supported by the console. What that means is that anyone who can make a game using the Unity engine, they can actually publish it on the Wii U. The rules/guidelines for submission are clear as of now, but considering the fact that unlike X-Box and Sony Nintendo rarely goes 3rd party, this is a huge leap.