I can remember back to the early days of the new Xbox Live Arcade, when it really hit the big time. I waited for each and every Wednesday to come round to see what was going to hit – ready with my trial request I’d play each new game before deciding to buy. Granted, most of the first batch of games were poor, simply aimed to get something on there, but after a while the good titles started to come through. Bring in the annual Summer of Arcade and the titles grew in both number but also in quality.
The awesome Shadow Complex is nearly two years old. Peggle, a game that continues to be enjoyed, is over two years old, released on XBLA in March 2009. Titles such as Uno, Zuma, Geometry Wars, Marble Blast Ultra, Trials HD and Castle Crashers are all great games delivered by an exciting service. It wasn’t just new games though, with classics such as Sonic, Doom, Street Fighter 2, TMNT, Worms and Outrun it enabled us to all relive our younger years, albeit through the rose tinted glasses of upscaling. By January 2007, just 14 months after it first came online the service had delivered over 20 million downloads.
It would be very difficult to try and summarise the service in just two paragraphs, especially as everyone will undoubtedly tell me I’ve forgotten their favourite game. A look through the most recent Top Arcade Chart from MajorNelson.com shows that a lot of the games we would call “classic” arcade titles are still there being purchased and played today. Which leads me onto the point of this post. What has Xbox Live Arcade done recently? Have we burnt out the new and exciting titles?
The most recent title, Trenched, isn’t even available in the UK. In fact the only place to have it is the US. I’ve not heard anything about it. It seems that these days Arcade titles just appear with little or no fanfare. Why? Has the Indie marketplace stolen all the good ideas – which is a shame because the Indie area of XBLA is so difficult to find many don’t bother.
So, really, my question to you all is two-fold. What was the last XBLA title you bought? And do you think the service is losing its edge?
Mine was Toy Soldiers – though I could have sworn I’d already bought it.
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The last Arcade game i bought was the fantastic Comic Jumper, since then though there hasn’t been anything released on the arcade that i wanted and by the looks of things the only thing that has any interest to me this year is Ms Splosion man.
I personally think that developers are now a little bit stuck on how to get the best out of the arcade.
For example the game where you play a cowboy puppet (the name has escaped me) that was supposed to come out for the Arcade for Kinect looked to be brilliant however Microsoft thought it was a good idea to make this a retail game however i think this is a bad move as i think it would of sold a lot more on the Arcade, so this shows that Microsoft themselves have lost faith a little in XBLA.
The only way for the Arcade to get back to it’s old brilliant ways is if Microsoft themselves get behind it a little more and show people how things should be done on it.
One last quick point most developers now who are looking to make a game that is suited for the arcade are now developing more for the playstation store as this is a more easier opportunity for them to try something new and different instead of just the same old games that have been done thousand of times over.
I think that the XBLA has actually matured, and as such is now offering a more diverse range of titles, that possibly hold less appeal for the masses, but do preserve a certain kudos within the service.
As a self-confess achievement maniac I am never one to turn a game away, but over the last few months there have been some very solid titles that simply arrive with a lot less fanfare than we used to see.
Also – many of the better titles released earlier were either remakes/ports/updates of series that have become popular elsewhere. Pop Cap has made a fortune from blitzing – see what I did there – the service with it’s brightest and best as well as the aforementioned Twisted Pixel and Ninja Bee producing solid titles with some regularity.
Capcom took a chance on the service with it’s two Dead Rising episodes – opting to release as Live Arcade titles instead of DLC for a retail titles certain suggests that the service is popular enough.
This year’s Summer of Arcade looks stunning, but many of the titles require a look before being sold on them. I was dubious, but all bar one are now on my MUST HAVE list – hopefully there will be another multi-buy promo.
XBLA isn’t dead, it’s just sitting maturely on the shelf ready when we need it, while giving the XBLIG the spotlight when needed. The two services are not mutually exclusive, and supporting smaller titles often means a full XBLA release further down the line. It’s not unfeasible to envision Braid and Limbo as XBLIG titles – were it not for the efforts made to promote these gems they could have been sat there amongst the other gems, fighting for the top spot against ‘massage’ apps and other Spectrum-esque ‘rip-offs’ of popular titles.
Further to my previous comments I have to add in Double Fine to the list of XBLA-friendly devs.
Stacking and Costume Quest exceptional examples of creativity being allowed to flourish as a direct result of the possibilities opened up by the Digital Distribution services.