Xbox One's first sub-$10 game launching this week

The Xbox One's first sub-$10 game, puzzle game Nutjitsu, will be available this Thursday, independent developer NinjaBee (A World of Keflings) told GameSpot this afternoon.

The game launches May 8 for $6.49. It is also the second game ever from Microsoft's new indie publishing program, ID@Xbox, to be released, following last month's Strike Suit Zero.

Nutjitsu was originally released last year on PC as a free (but ad-supported) game for Windows 8. So why is the Xbox One version not free?

"The Windows 8 version allows users to purchase the 'acoins' currency used to buy upgrades and consumables. We were experimenting with a free-to-play model. We didn't like what it did to game balance and the user experience so much, so we decided to can the F2P approach, and allow users to get ALL the content with the base game purchase," a company respresentative told GameSpot today. "It just ended up making more sense to monetize the old fashion way than trying our hand at F2P on the console."

In the top-down, arcade-style game, you play as a squirrel who is out to retrieve stolen (and sacred) acorns from enemy foxes.