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.'"

Comments

Re:New Market Strategy

[bigman2003]

I agree with you that the points thing is important.

But it is not just because it isn't 'real money'.

I buy XBLA games because it is EASY. I don't have to go find my wallet and take out my card. I don't have to type in a bunch of numbers, I don't have to fill out any personal information and wonder how much spam I am requesting. I don't have to worry about whether or not my information is going to the Russian mafia.

I just click the 'buy this' button, and I'm done. Easy on-line purchasing has finally arrived. And I'm willing to give them $50 every few months (load up my points) to make it happen. Even putting in more money is easy.

I really don't give a shit about $50, or $100. I don't mind spending it if the process is easy, and it seems like I am getting something for my money. This just works well.

Imagine if QVC could do the same thing...

Re:New Market Strategy

[Saige]

XBLA games are tied to both the box they were downloaded on, and the gamertag that bought them.

You can put them on a memory card and play at a friend's place - if they have access to XBLA, then they can play the full version as long as your gamertag is logged in, and even copy it to their hard drive. But once your GT is gone, they revert to demo versions.

However, the box you bought them on has the full version available for every person who uses that 360. So you could technically be playing two copies of that game at the same time - one on the box you bought it on, and one on another with the buying gamertag logged in. And yes, this is intentional.

If the box you buy it on dies, and you end up with a replacement, you can redownload the game, but then you lose the ability to have other accounts play the full version without the purchasing one being logged in. You can try calling support in such a case - more than once they've worked with people who have had to send in their Xbox to get fresh versions on their new Xbox that properly link to that box.