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The Xbox Live Arcade - One Year Later
Via Joystiq, an article at GamePro asking is Live Arcade worth it? One year after its launch, the service has been transformed by lots of retro classics, some brand new games, and the addition of the (now working) movie and television download service. What parts are good, what parts are bad, and ultimately, is it worth it? From the article: "Many of XBLA's original games draw their inspirations from classic video games, and the poster child for XBLA originals is Bizarre Creations' Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Released with the launch of Xbox 360, Geometry Wars showed a skeptical world just how cool original yet classically styled downloadable games could be. It plays like a crazed combination of all-time classics Asteroids and Robotron: 2084, with your lone, triangular spaceship pitted against literally endless hordes of nasty geometric shapes. The level of onscreen carnage is legendary; never has a game had more spectacular or over-the-top particle effects, showing that even simple games can be flashy."
Via Joystiq, an article at GamePro asking is Live Arcade worth it?
Worth what? The nothing extra you have to pay if you hve a 360 and a broadband connection? Acquiring a broadband connection if you don't already have one? Acquiring a 360 if you don't already have one? (The answers are yes, maybe, and no, incidentally).
I don't really know what question the article is trying to answer.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
I just bought a 360 a couple months ago after getting an HDTV. I really enjoy the games on Live. Recently the Wed releases have been really good originals. Small Arms, Roboblitz, and the excellent Assault Heroes released this morning have all been good. $10 for Small Arms and Assault Heroes isn't bad at all. Roboblitz for $15 is pushing it. I also like being able to play Defender, Galaga, etc. without using discs or having a hacked Xbox running MAME. Marble Blast is pretty much liked by everybody that plays it. With board games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan coming to the Live arcade it's getting more diverse. And that's not even talking about all the other games on there.
It's not really fair to compare MS to what Nintendo are currently doing. If you have seen the selection on the Wii's virtual console (VC) then you know that the majority of the games are tiny NES, TG16, SNES, and Genesis games. The larger N64 games are still few in number. Also, Nintendo are adding NOTHING to these games yet. Right now they are exactly how they were on their original consoles. The XBLA classic titles, on the other hand, support HD, have achievements, leaderboards, online multipler, and some have enhanced graphics. Then you have the new games like Small Arms which are original titles... and Nintendo's VC has none of those yet.
I too would like to see more content, but you can't fairly compare what MS are doing to what Nintendo are doing.
Right now, your xbox can access xbox live, a closed system whos content is controlled and regulated by Microsost. Everything on it can be verified to be safe, and to work on your xbox. Opening up this secure, closed network to the hostilities of the public internet can't be something they're in a hurry to do. A web browser, especially if its Internet Explorer (and it certainly would be on the xbox) opens up the possibility of arbitrary content and code to be viewed and downloaded. I imagine there are people on this very website who would love to be able to exploit a browser bug and attack a Microsoft console.
I'm guessing that Microsoft has enough web browser experience to know not to include one.