I love Xbox Live Arcade
I’ve tried to find an introduction for this several times, but never knew where to begin until now. ‘Love’ is a strong word, and there must be a reason behind using it. There is.
Nostalgia.
Not nostalgia because I can now play Frogger (which I never really liked), or Pac Man, or Galaga (which I have on mame, but bought anyway) on my Xbox 360. No, this is nostalgia because it takes me back 20 years when 3 quid was enough to buy a great game.
On my Amstrad CPC 464, I could buy games at £10 or at £1.99 (then it shot up to 2.99). I remember going to the supermarket in Northern Irleand with my mother every few weeks (hey, she went every week, we weren’t that poor), and while she bought food and toilet roll, I spent the whole time looking at those 2 quid (then 3 quid) tapes that promised me hours of fun. 2 quid was nothing even back then – probably about the same price as 8 pints of milk around that time. These days a game cost 50 quid, and thats a whole lot of milk.
The £10 games were those such as Rambo, Batman, Operation Wolf, Robocop, but the little cheap ones were Dizzy and Chucky Egg and Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner and…and…and…
…and now this publishing model is back with us – where I can spend a few pounds and download a game. Thats why I love XBLA – it gives me the chance for a few quid to play games that are worth a few quid. These games are not worth £50, but they don’t pretend to be.
Consoles have never had this before. You had cover mounted demo disk, and budget label reissues of the top games (that you already owned), but Microsoft have provided us the consumer a delivery channel of cheap, fun games. Not only are they cheap to buy, but they also all have downloadable demos so you can try them out first, a system that harkens back to the PC shareware games from companies such as Apogee.
These downloadable games are of couse nothing new – this has been availble on the PC for years – but it’s been integrated into the XBL experience so well that people can’t help but looking.
These days, I’m not only excited about Gears of War – go Kev – (and of course, GTA4 – go me), but XBLA games such as Darwinia and Alien Hominid.
Next time – why XBLA is good for developers
Technorati Tags: consumers, Games, Gaming, gta, shareware, xbox 360, xbox arcade
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:41 am
September 3rd, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Xbox Live was what I played most when I first got my 360 on it’s release day ( well that and PGR3)and I still continue to play it a lot.
Initially, for some reason I got heavily addicted to a diet of Bejeweled 2, Gauntlet and Smash TV ( I blame Per, he made me buy it when he was over ).
What’s great about Live is that it lets you get the cool shit you often grab from the net without the tedious ordeal of finding a decent server, finding that every site and its dog wants you to signup and subscribe with your email, hoping the connection doesnt time out, hoping you don’t have to wait too long in line, tracking down the best site with the download, finding a fast mirror … sheesh.
Oh and then finding its got some new weird codec and won’t run until you go through the same tedium to track that down.
Live makes getting previews and demos fun and easy for all, like the net was meant to be. Theres no spammers, there’s no email spam, theres no virus, but still, the access to movies ( in 720p!), games, demos, trailers of games, little tech movies, industry news is right there at the click of a button.
I’d never really bought into all the smart talk about the future plans of MS and sony et al about making ‘entertainment centers’ that do music, games, movies, demos etc…. but now it makes sense to me.
It’s really conveniant and it doesn’t require me to sit hunched over a complicated uncomfortable unsociable pc setup like I do all day at work, I can just sit with the family on a comfy chair and we can switch between all the stuff we like through one system.
And yeah, its great being able to grab some fun wee games for wee amount of money instead of having to fork over a shedload of money to some tosser with delusions of grandeur looking to trot out his latest magnum opus which is in fact mutton dressed up as veal.
I hope that this trend continues far enough that we can just do away with publishers and suits and decision by committee a good bit and get back to a small group of people often clubing together to make something neat and fun and then distributing it through a medium like Live.
r.
September 3rd, 2006 at 11:06 pm
September 5th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
I agree but some of those games you listed have controls that are terrible or are average ports of great games.
Anyways, I just wanted to say I love your title, it reminds me of my website =D.
September 12th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
[...] Previously I mentioned how much I loved Xbox Live Arcade – it’s great for gamers. But XBLA is also great for developers. [...]