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 I've been putting off a post about the Xbox Live Arcade for a while in hopes of getting a little more perspective. I don't think I can wait any longer because news is starting to fly around pretty quickly.
First some quick background... Xbox Live Arcade (henceforth XBLA) has been around for longer than most people realize. It was actually a $20 disc you could buy for the first Xbox that would let you download little games and play them on your Xbox. It was sort of a dry run for the new XBLA that is included with every Xbox360. Now you can download movies, game demos, and pay small fees ($5-$10) for little arcade games. You don't have to be an Xbox Live subscriber to get access to all this content.
Without XBLA, the 360 would not have achieved this level of success. It would have been just another console with a mediocre launch title selection. XBLA is where it's at. Gamers love it because we can pick up quick little games that are insanely addictive. I play more Geometry Wars ($5) than Call of Duty 2 or PGR3 ($60 each.) Games are currently shipping at about three per month, but I expect that to go up as the XBLA guys increase their staff and more publishers jump on board. Microsoft loves it because it's another selling point and revenue stream. Publishers love it because it's a lot cheaper to make Geometry Wars or port Joust than it is to make the next Madden game.
 But that's not the biggest reason XBLA is going to be a smashing success. Indie gamer publishers are flipping out over this new distribution channel. Rough numbers say that Geometry Wars has sold around 50K copies and the recently released Marble Blast Ultra is around 30K. I realize Geometry Wars wasn't from an indie game company, but you get the picture. You're instantly reaching a large market of eager fans with a super cheap distribution plan. You don't have to spend money trying to get people to come to your site to download the game. You don't have to worry about bandwidth charges or keeping your servers up. Sign that agreement with MSFT and you're all set. Your game now sits directly in front of millions of hardcore gamers and casual gamers alike. (There's a good two part post on this topic from the brain behind Marble Blast Ultra. Part 1, Part 2)
There's news going around today about how Sony has their own plans for an online service. I have two comments about that: “Uh huh... right next to my PSP iPod killer” and “Duh.” First of all, when has the Sony marketing team ever been rooted in fact? Nobody even knows what their console is going to look like. It's all shrouded in mysterious BS about how the console will float on water and have laser beams shooting out the front. Secondly, duh. How could Sony not do some sort of online service? Nintendo is already touting their ability to download classic games to the Revolution. Sony can't just sit back and watch this thing run away from them. But how long have they been working on this idea? Did they just now jump on the bandwagon? How can they possibly come up with something on the scale of XBLA in just a few months? Microsoft has a couple years of experience directly with XBLA. Remember what you're seeing now is really version 2.0.
It's good to see game publishing coming back into the domain of garage programmers. I'll still eagerly anticipate games from our good buddy Matt at EA, but now I have some smaller cheaper games to fill in the gaps. Game publishing looks to be taking the same path as television and radio. I realize that I'm probably an early adopter in this area, but I get about half of my weekly entertainment from independent publishers: TWiT, CommandN, Preston and Steve, DL.TV, MajorNelson, DotNetRocks, etc. It's all content produced by the little guy.
The little guy is growing stronger. Video, music, and now games all have viable distribution options. It takes somebody smarter than me to see what the final result of all this will be, but I like the direction we're heading. |