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Long Live Xbox Live Arcade
Edge Online has a piece up talking about the success of Xbox Live Arcade. They wonder out loud if the Live Arcade won't end up being the most important next-gen platform in this round of the console wars. From the article: "Live Arcade's conversion rate - the proportion of people who upgrade the demo to the full, paid-for version - is extraordinarily high, according to Canessa: 'The industry average on PC is about 0.8 per cent to one per cent, and in the first generation of Arcade we were hitting about 8.5 per cent, which was fantastic. But in this generation of Arcade we're hitting up to 35 per cent, and averaging over 20 per cent across all the titles. I mean, we had to check the data to make sure it wasn't a mistake. It's absolutely unheard of.'"
teh arcade is a great draw, but the real success is geometry wars. its a runaway smash with alot of buzz. that and the lack of a wide variety of solid retail titles. buying a full version of a demo for a fraction of the cost of a regular x360 title [and happens to be more fun] is a no brainer. when the AAA x360 titles arrive, maybe thats when we should compare numbers.
basically people have a $400 machine and are dying to play something on it. no big deal. but for the time being, they need to give geometry wars most of the credit there.
There's really no wonder why this tactic works. The user ir provided with the ability to actually get hands-on experience with the product (one of the games from Arcade) and is able to play a decent amount of it. After this experience, much like iTunes, the user is able to simply hit a few buttons, enter a few bits of data (if that) and have the full version of the game they just became addicted to within minutes! This is a much better system since the user has to do nearly nothing except enjoy playing a game in order to be sold on the product. It is truely a new era: They already purchased something they wanted (an Xbox 360), now they are doing something they wanted to do (playing a game), and are able to obtain that same game without leaving their home!
Slant
Between the Spaces
I think this is great! But at the same time, I think seeing the situation one year from now will really tell the tale. Anyone who gets a new system is going to likely get the "whole experience" right away. And then, after paying for the year of service, if they stick around... that will be the true measure of how well people accept/like/obsess about the Live service.
But it's still a great achievement.
There isn't anything else to play on the 360 right now. There's what, maybe 20 full titles out right now. About half of them are any good. A quarter might garner repeat play. I'm not dissin' 360, all I'm saying is the numbers are skewed. Plus the numbers for XBox were taken over almost the complete life of the system compared to the few months the 360 has been out. Come back in 3 years and we'll probably see about 8.5%. The reason the PC numbers are so low is due to the fact that there are far more demos for PC than any other system. Almost every game for PC has a demo.
- Flash-based downloadable games
- Being able to IM your friends, no matter what game they're in
- High-score lists
Okay, granted, it wasn't clear that this stuff would readily trasnfer to consoles, and still be popular. What I don't get is, now that one console has shown these are far and away very popular, why other consoles don't pick up on it ASAP?I guess, to some extent, we have to wait and see whether Sony's PNP or Nintendo's online service do these things. But given how unenthusiastically the companies have been dragged into having a centralized online service, and the likelihood that Sony will focus on trying to sell its other media assets, and might neglect the gaming aspects of the online service (central IM, high-score lists, and there's still room for more features).
...of the press letting the 360 off the hook for its UTTER lack of good software, simply because Xbox Live is nifty. To answer the articles absurd question: no, Xbox Live Arcade will not become the most important next-gen platform in this round of the console wars.
Arcade could have been so much more if MS had included a bigger hard drive. People would love to download full retail games, not only smaller games like Mutant Storm and Geometry Wars, but their diskspace will be severely limited to only a couple of titles at a time. If only the internet were faster, Live users could subscribe to streamed games. Alas, that's too much to hope for in this generation of consoles.
"Per cent"?
Isn't it "Percent"?
Maybe from a math standpoint they might be the same thing...
On one hand, I find it ironic that the most popular feature of a four hundred dollar console primarily propagandized as ZOMG POWREFUL is a service that lets you download games that could run on ten-year-old consoles.
On the other hand, I'm excited for what could be the "return" of the arcade, shifting from a physical place to an online service
The reason people are buying these is becase they have too much money, as evidenced by buying a Xbox360 at this point in the game, and having spent all that moneny and not being able to buy many games, a few cheap downloads start looking pretty attractive. Once prices come down, and somehting resembling mainstream buyers enter the market this situation will correct itself.
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The ability to play PopCap style games on an XBox 360 isn't going to give them a big advantage in the console race. No one will buy a $400 console just to play $5 games. Besides, Sony will be selling PSOne games to play on the PSP, how much you want to be they'll let you play them on your PS3? They could easily do the same with PS2 games. Plus there is nothing stopping them from offering the same thing.
Nintendo will let you download and play GB/GBA/NES/SNES/N64/GC games, so they can compete on that front easily. Plus, again, they could have new PopCap style games as well.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
"No one will buy a $400 console just to play $5 games"
It is a $300 console, but you are still correct.
Many many people, although, will select a $300 360 over a $600 PS3 when these $5 games are also in the equation.
Why wouldn't it be? These arcade titles are cheap, easy to get into, easy to get and install and because of Xbox Live are collabrative on some level (whether that be a friends sorted HiScore board or direct xbox live head to head).
We are social creatures. We want to watch what our friends watch and we want to play what our friends are playing. This console generation's war may be decided more on which console allows us to play with our friends and less on which console has the best games and hardware.
By allowing us to see what games our buddies are playing and what thier scores are, Live Marketplace may have just stumbled into the most viral marketing models we have seen yet.
Ves
Generic Space FPS
Driving Game
Sports
Action
RPG
Weve played them all, there are dozens of top level quality games of each genre that you can get used for cheap today. Whats the draw?
needs new game mechanics, new ways to play. Something we havnt seen.
This is the stupidest article ever. It might as well say "M$ releases pointless statistics in hopes of keeping their share price up." So few 360s are out and the only people who have them are the type of gamer who buys every game that comes out. The also take in consideration that all the games constantly get pushed back. When it came out in November, January was when all the games were supposed to come out. January rolled around and everything got pushed back until March. Now that it's March a couple titles got released but the majority got pushed back until summer - most all the way until fall. (I work at GameStop, I know my release dates).
The Arcade is just another way for Microsoft to take your money. It's nothing revolutionary and Nintendo and Sony will have the exact same thing on their consoles.