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Xbox Live Arcade Details Emerge
An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money's latest Game Over column spills the beans on Xbox Live Arcade (previously mentioned on Slashdot), Microsoft's forthcoming effort to attract more casual gamers to its console. The feature, which will offer classic arcade games and popular online fare like Bejeweled, will launch Nov. 3, but as the column points out, it will have a very small line-up of titles and will charge rather high fees to purchase them."
For the past several years, I am constantly seeing re-releases of old/retro games. Sometimes they are one-game-to-a-cart, like with GBA retro games, sometimes they are collections like Namco Arcade.
The one constant is that they always cost at least two or three times what I could pay for the original at a used video game store. In the extreme case, I can buy six old Atari games for my PS2 for $30, or I can go spend $20 for an old Atari and a stack of 20 games.
Or I can do what I really did and pick up an old Atari, two of basically every controller, and a box of about 60 games for $5.
Which just leaves me wondering, who buys this stuff?
It seems like this is a pretty pointless offer from microsoft. If you think about it, in order to play these games, you need to make the original hardware investment of $150, then you need to have Xbox Live, another $50/year (I think), and you have to pay for each game?
This is in opposition to the current retro-trend oriented hardware which bundles a bunch of games inside one old controller shaped device that you can hook directly to your TV for maybe $20.
Basically, the only advantages Live can claim are that 1)you don't need to go to a store and 2)you can post your scores on a message board. I just don't see the attraction.
Can someone enlighten me? (I guess I could google it but i'm lazy)
On a different (smaller) scale, Microsoft is attempting to offer a service that the Phantom does not seem to be able to provide. Many threads have done nothing but annihilate Infinium Labs and its offering of the Phantom console system. With this service, Microsoft is offering a similar product; however, on a level that is less technically demanding, which might negate some of the major issues the Phantom is facing.
On demand gaming has to start somewhere. Flame Microsoft all you want, but Microsoft seems to be taking a reasonable approach: start small, with a market that is hot (retro gaming) and see how it works.
The price point might be a little high, but prices are always adjustable. The important thing is that Microsoft is starting small. This could be a step in the right direction for on demand gaming.
Respect It.
Hey Microsoft, if you want my money for X-Box live, then offer all the old Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and Virtual Fighter titles for online competitve play. Hold tournaments for money like heat.net used to. There is no way I'm dropping 50$ on your network unless it does something better/different from Mame with Kaillara.
So, I'm expected to go out and spend $150 dollars on an x-box, $50 on x-box live and then another $10 dollars just so I can play bejewelled?
Why don't I just play solitare while I'm at work?
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
In my opinion, it's a really cool service. The concept of being able to play online poker, Galaga, Pac-Man, whathaveyou, is awesome as a way to play something fun that's less demanding than most online games. That being said, their pricing structure is way too high. It's not about the cost of the Xbox or Xbox Live, which their target audience already has, but the concept of playing Dig-Dug online for around twenty bucks is too rich for my blood. Around five dollars for a title sounds a lot easier to swallow.
This is an attempt by Microsoft to draw in those same folks that do this at Yahoo! games and MSN games, which are mainly older women.
/. reader is not older nor a woman, hence all the negative comments.
The typical
This isn't designed to get people to buy new boxen, and live subscriptions. It's to hopefully get some of the rest of the family involved with the xbox that they already have in the home, but normally wouldn't touch.
Maybe a lot of people don't care and aren't interested in these sort of games - but I always like to support the little guy, and I really hope this opens up the 'cash pot' for all those little indie developers out there. Of course, I suspect there will be an army of middle men in the way, as this article by one of the guys from garage games points the way of the future for indies. I also hope it opens up the market for some of the less casual indie games out there. All the stuff popcap does is pretty banal (but fun in a mindnumbing way). I've heard that hamsterball will be on there, which is a cool game I own and love. Maybe that will leave hope for some of the other good shareware games to end up on XBoxLive, not just the coloured block pushing clones. Crimsonland, SpaceTripper or Gish on Xbox? Yeah, I'd buy...
I wonder what percentage the little developer gets though? Maybe I'll hold off until I know - I can always buy direct from their website - I'd rather support them and their future endeavours than all the sharks in between.
What they need is online versions of these games where you can compete with others, like yahoo games or what not.
I know it would interest a lot of non-gamers to be able to play "Ink Link" and Pop-Cap puzzle games for a very (very) low price, seeing as they are mostly free online.
I had to buy a second TV back in 1993 or 94 because the little antenna screws you used to connect consoles or VCRs or stuff with weren't long enough to add my Genesis without unplugging something else. I had three at one point. One for 8 bit, one for 16 bit, and one for everything else. It was commented that my room resembled the center of a Borg Cube.
Sometimes I wonder if I should get a life. Then I see something cool on the release list for next week.
Yet again a bunch of people on Slashdot jump all over something without doing all of the homework.
Old Arcade games are not what Live Arcade is about, nor will that be all it will launch with. There are many independant games which most people have never seen before comming out on Live Arcade. Games that take full advantage of the Xbox's hardware shaders, etc.
I agree that paying $20 for a bunch of retro games doesn't seem right, but most folks are forgetting that the bulk of the games on Live Arcade are going to be all the newer downloadable games that can be found on MSN, Yahoo, Pogo, etc. Those games are all priced around $20 bucks.
t e=pogo
See the following sites:
http://zone.msn.com/en/root/downloads.htm
http://www.gamehouse.com/
http://www.pogo.com/togo/tg-topgames.jsp?sls=2&si
Most of these games have free versions you can play on the web, but they have fewer features and are loaded with ads.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of these downloadable games, but undoubtedly they must make a lot money, for them to be around at so many sites. If $20 turns out to be too high for the XBox Live Arcade audience, then I'm sure MS will tweak the price a bit.
-- jchenx