super meat boy was first released as a flash game on new grounds. The success there lead to the future release on console and PC (and i recall seeing it was rewritten for these platforms, rather than porting the flash version, but now i can't find a reference).

And while braid is indeed released first on console, there's at least one citation of Blow decrying the process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_(video_game)#cite_ref-xb... . Blow likely had no choice at the time because steam (in 2007) wasn't as big a platform as it is today.

I am still of the opinion that console-only releases are not good for indie developers, despite the apparent contradiction of it being more profitable. And the reason Braid had xbox live arcade release is more to do with the industry connection Blow has, rather than the merits of the platform. Even Blow himself initially thought he'd be making a PC release for this game (until the financial side-benefits of xbox arcade back then kicked in).