What's Wrong with Xbox Live Arcade? Options

[Xbox-Scene]

What's Wrong with Xbox Live Arcade? Posted by HSDEMONZ | February 24 10:27 EST

From 1up.com: [QUOTE] "The answer is: Nothing," Aaron Greenberg, Group Product Manager for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live told 1UP. Yet, Xbox Live Arcade's recent history doesn't support that. In addition to a spotty release schedule -- one Joystiq summed up "Ms. Pac-Man, Lumines add-on, nothing, Root Beer Tapper, Paperboy, nothing" -- two top executives (Greg Canessa and Ross Erickson) have left the group for PopCap and Sierra Games respectively. Furthermore, Sony's PlayStation Network continues to evolve -- Warhawk as a downloadable-only title won't be an anomaly on the PlayStation Network -- and Nintendo's Virtual Console is consistently prolific, releasing at least three titles a week. That prolificacy hasn't existed even in Microsoft's ability to ship a title each week on Xbox Live Arcade. There have been multiple weeks where there's been either nothing, or a content pack for an existing game. "We hear the feedback, I can assure you that these last few weeks of Xbox Live Arcade releases was not the way we planned it," Greenberg said. While upcoming titles like Boom Boom Rocket show promise, where's the sequel to Geometry Wars? "No new Geometry Wars at GDC," Greenberg told 1UP. There will be a stable of Xbox Live Arcade games on display at GDC, some never-before-seen titles and some surprises. March, Greenberg promised would be a bit of a redemption for the platform: "March looks very strong from a release standpoint. Expect a storm of new releases, we are going to deliver and make up for February," Greenberg said. Does that mean that there will be more than one title per week? "I cannot comment on that." Sony's premium studios are allegedly working on PlayStation Network titles. It's been speculated that the Ico team -- the team responsible for Shadow of the Colossus is working on a PlayStation Network title, with David Jaffe's Calling All Cars serving as another example. What about Microsoft Game Studios involvement in Xbox Live Arcade? "You're seeing a lot of major publishers getting involved in this market," Greenberg said, citing EA's recent Wing Commander Arena and Boom Boom Rocket announcements. "At GDC we'll be sharing some first party stuff." But that doesn't mean that Microsoft's first party is going to shore the load of Xbox Live Arcade development, "The focus for first party remains making products for retail," Greenberg said. "This isn't a major initiative from our first parties. First party will play a role there [in the XBLA space] but we're not going to lead the charge." ... "Some people just want quality over quantity," said Greenberg. "People have a minimum quality bar that they expect; we're increasingly adding that to more and more of these titles." That increased functionality includes co-op, HD support, achievements, new gametypes -- but that functionality also comes with a price. When there are holes that appear on the release calendar it's often because the games in question failed certification. Sometimes even the "back-up" games for a given week of release on Xbox Live Wednesdays fail certification: "[This week] We really did have multiple titles slip at the same time. That is not our plan going forward," Greenberg assured. "We are excited to bring Alien Hominid out next week; we are excited to make up for lost time." [/QUOTE] full Story.. News-Source: 1up.com

[Q3A-TaNK]

I personally like to see more modern and recent arcade games come to XBA like Daytona USA with online play just like the Dreamcast verison, Quake 3 Arena would be awesome, or something of that nature. You know Ms Pac Man and Galaga are great and still hold a market on their own, but the problem i see is that XBA needs a little more recongizeable or recent names in arcade/classic games. XBA still has time to improve and i will honestly cant wait to see what will come of the future of XBA

[The Zep Man]

The problem is the 'Arcade' name. Not every game shouldn't have to be an'arcade' game.

For example, Microsoft could make a deal with Square-Enix to port Chrono Trigger to the Xbox 360 (and perhaps some other classic SNES RPG's).

[[TR]]

I find it funny how the people in the gaming industry are constantly excited and hyperbolic.
They're either Pfizer's biggest or worst customers, depending on how natural all this excitement is.
Guess they keep their wives happy, anyway.

(Lame) Jokes aside, PS Network's approach seems to me to be a better deal for us as customers (not that I've ever used it, since the PS3 isn't even out here).
If you're not getting much content at least you didn't have to pay to stare at nothing. Or play online, as I understand it. Which seems to be a much more reasonable approach to online multiplayer.
And on Live Arcade, just yesterday I asked in the Live forum if you could play those games online with a Silver account. Seems you can't, Gold only. Nice way to lose a customer, really. I can buy it online, just not play it there.
And if I'm not considering Gold for any of my games, I sure won't pay for it just for one or two Arcade games.

On a whole, I think this should change and Ms should release a few more modern games, just like Q3A-TaNK said. Maybe then I'll buy something on Live Arcade.

[crasher0255]

Pretty good interview, I definitely hope they find a better way to streamline their cert process. I personally like XBLA and have since the start, but there weekly release consistency is absolutley terrible. They need to work the kinks out and be able to guarantee a weekly release by now, at first it was acceptable when the service first launched but its been out 1 year plus now and just getting crazy. Especially now since they have some competition w/ virtual console (Well obviously nintendo should be able to get more than a game out a week since there is no co-op, leaderboards, etc and they are just porting previous games) but still. Hopefully we see at least a game a week for rest of Feburary, all of March, and April would be nice.....Or one a week for the rest of the year would be even better (haha).....Also more orginal titles would be nice, cant wait for the mini golf game...retro is good once in a while but it depends, bring the best of retro not crap that people barely played in the 80's (New rally x? and theres some other in there).

And what happened to Sonic the Hedgehog for XBLA, I think they showed it at E3?

I personally like to see more modern and recent arcade games come to XBA like Daytona USA with online play just like the Dreamcast verison, Quake 3 Arena would be awesome, or something of that nature. You know Ms Pac Man and Galaga are great and still hold a market on their own, but the problem i see is that XBA needs a little more recongizeable or recent names in arcade/classic games. XBA still has time to improve and i will honestly cant wait to see what will come of the future of XBA

haha I havent heard that name in ages that was pretty fun back in the day

[DrPepperFan15]

I like the arcade selection....

me:Paid subscription to Xbox Live since April of '03
-Paid for almost all content for every game
-At one time paid for 4 yearly subscriptions at once
-Right now have about 9000 Microsoft Points to buy stuff with
-I have 30 Arcade games to play with as of right now

I think I'm set for now even for the future of the arcade but I do have to say the missing releases are a bit disappointing but still, it's all the fun whether we get the arcade game or not since we can always play others that we bought

[spinr34]

i like arcade. it's funny though, i remember being at zero hour and i went to the 360s that were playing hexic. i had never seen hexic before, had never heard of the arcade, etc, etc and a microsoft employee came up and started telling me about the arcade. he was all excited and just kept telling me about all the stuff you could do in it. i laughed because i immediately put it with those xbox live arcade discs that were available on the original xbox and thought that it wouldn't go anywhere. well, i was wrong anyways, getting to my point. i don't see why people get so upset that a game doesn't come out on a wednesday. if there isn't a game for one week, alright, big deal. the 360 is already so much ahead of anything the ps3 store or wii has to offer (i have all 3 consoles). seriously, releases could miss the xbla for months and still be ahead of each other system's "arcade". the games on the wii are overpriced. also, there isn't any real reason to pay for them unless you haven't played them for ages and haven't heard of emulation :x when a retro game comes out on the 360 there are usually nice additions to the game. i'll take crystal quest as an example. the modified version of that game is way better than the original retro version and i actually bought it for that reason and it was a fun game. given, sometimes the extra features in these old games don't always work like you think they should, i give them credit for adding new things and trying to improve on a quality title. also, on the 360 you can download a demo of EVERY arcade game. this is the inherent plus of xbla. the virtual console doesn't have any demos and the ps3 store has a few. but, in the ps3 store not all games have demos. i wanted to try out flOw because i was thinking about buying it. but i realized i couldn't so, i won't buy it because i have no idea what it is like. you can break down the online/multiplayer front anyway you want to, and for one second i never feel ripped off by paying for xbox live. even the silver membership has plusses over the other console's online capabilities. but then you have that major minus of no online multiplayer. that can be debated though too, just not in this post

[Kr0n1k]

The arcade is lacking for one reason and one reason only, the limit to the file size. The game has to be under or at 50MB, which is ridiculous. That is what has prevented the XBLA from exploding with new content because it is much to restrictive on the developer. The limit should be 500MB, not 50MB, and the HDD should be a 100GB, not 20GB. Then the arcade would most likely have an insane amount of content.

[stowelly]

yeh xbla can have all the classics and it works, but like someone said before quake3 is necessary and alot of the other games of this era, C&C red alert kinda stuff, some of the point n clicks like monkey islands and discworld games..... too much more they can do with this stuff

[thax]

Diablo would be pretty fun, or how about Starcraft?

[DrPepperFan15]

Speaking of MMO's... I'm glad PSU is now available for free in the demo instead of paying $10 a month and it's a bitch to cancel the subscription since it will not let you in the account management and customer support sucks but anyways back on topic....

Diablo and starcraft would be an extremely nice feature only if you dont have to pay for the online service and if at most it would be 800 MSPoints

[Legendary Badass]

We need games that have more depth for the price. Paperboy should be $2.50 USD. A good $5 game would be SFII. At $10 a game should have true online co-op, and a 3D engine. Where are the games from the '90s?????? I want Something like X-Men and TMNT. And screw the 64 MB limit, give us Tomb Raider 1, Resident Evil 2, and Saturn Bomberman all in at least 720p!!!A gun game would be nice too (Time Crisis) that way MS could make some money off of a light gun that functions with HDTVs. I've been hearing from others that the Wii is getting tons of titles, they had Gunstar Heroes right out of the gate.

If you want something done right you really should do it yourself, so if MS gives me enough money I'll accept the job of XBLA director. One of the first things I would do is open up the top XNA games, slap some challenging achievements on them, and put them out on the marketplace. I don't need a game a week, to be happy, we'd be better off with bigger games that take some time to play. And to make some real money, someone should rig together an addictive MMORPG for XBLA that doesn't require a monthly fee.

[luther349]

the arcade has a few good titles but relly it is lacking. but the stuf they do have is good doom contra mk3 the card games.

[keystroke]

The XBLA limit is now 250mb.

Nintendo have heaps of releases because they are just releasing roms, no new functionality and non-HD titles.

I'd never buy a "retro" 20 year old game, but I will buy new games (I bought Small Arms) but XBLA better get it's act together soon, I'm going to buy Worms when it hits later this month and also probably Alien Hominid HD.

[luther349]

well ifyou dont like retro thers still the card games and the cuple orignal games.