ickingfudiot said:
This guy knows what he's talking about.
The N+ guys got carried away bashing XBLA titles, but a lot of their original post was pretty spot on. If you've dealt at all with XBLA from the developer standpoint (especially trying to publish independently), it's a bit of a nightmare. We were looking at a 6 month delay minimum from the time we'd certify to our game's release if we published on XBLA because the pipeline is so clogged with retro ports and the like. There's a lot of gems on the service, I'd never agree that "all the games are shit" but there's also a lot of crap on there and no real way to filter out the good from the bad since everything is just lumped together.
The important thing with XBLA is that the current setup just doesn't justify itself financially for a lot of teams, and I think what the N+ guys rightfully question (if a bit un-tactfully) is whether or not the abundance of low-quality titles on the service hurts sales of the truly good ones that have been mentioned time and again in this very thread. Look at Mr. Killemgood's numbers - there's 11 million XBLA accounts but a blockbuster selling title like Geometry Wars has sold in the range of ~600,000 units (depending on who you listen to). Most titles unless they're retro ports or UNO seem to sell in the 100,000-300,000 range. The gross profits seem okay but once you take out Microsoft's cut, the publisher's cut, and any other factors there's really not a whole lot there for the developer. Contrast that to how much you pull down going full retail (where you've got a much bigger audience for whatever reason) and you can do "okay" on sales and make more in the end. Something to think about when you wonder why a game isn't an XBLA or PSN title - I know a lot of developers that would love to churn out high quality, small titles on those services but it just doesn't make sense financially, at least not yet, and the royalties increase on XBLA certainly didn't help things.
And thats the issue. From a developer's standpoint, Microsoft just isn't doing what it could (at very little cost to incur themselves), to increase consumer spending on the XBLA service. And that, exactly, is the problem.
The attach ratio for XBLA titles is blindingly low - about 1.5-1.8 games per Live user, and about 2.5 for those users that actually utilize the Arcade service. And that's jaw-droppingly low. We're talking about a system that's broken any and all Attach Ratios, in a similar timeframe. Retail copy games attach at 7.0 - and Arcade is much, much lower, despite the much, much lower price.
And the fact is, MS has, since it's inception, not done a single thing to "weed out" titles and the content of the titles. It's pretty much a jungle for users to navigate through, to hopefully find, and buy, a title. That's why known IPs have done much better than totally unique IPs. I believe N+'s succuess wasn't in the fact it's ultra-unique, but the fact that it had a huge built-in install base of the N Fanbase...Those that played N knew it was coming out, knew what was contained in it, and converted readily to the purchasing base.
Look at the top titles this year (titles released this year), as of 3/22/08 (sans BC, which is today's #s):
Rez HD 108,910
Metal Slug 3 84,871
N+ 79,022
Poker Smash 46,862
Brain Challenge 46,284 (as of today)
Notice something about the top titles? Rez, MS, N+ and Brain Challenge all have titles in the retail field. Why does that matter? Those given titles have a built-in purchase base that knew the titles were coming out...Even though some hate MS3, the fact is, the people that like that sort of game knew it was coming out, and bought it up quickly.
The only title outside of my given list, Poker Smash, was highly anticipated, and alot of people were interested in it even last year.
And knowing these kind(s) of numbers makes developers upset sometimes, because you have titles like Commanders selling maybe 1/4th of what the top-5 have so far, despite it being a good game. Why didn't it sell great? Not everyone has heard of an art-deco 20's Strategy game...And fewer want to buy it, even if it IS that great (ala Undertow).
So what can Microsoft do? IMO, the first, most critical thing is actually advertising the d*** thing. Despite XBLA grossing about the same amount of money a 2 million-unit selling full price game has (about $125m USD), there's been how much money put into marketing? Certainly not enough. Microsoft, from PR statements, has said that 60% of Live users have bought an arcade title. That's absolutely pathetic... That number should be 85-90%, as that's the number (estimated, nonetheless) of HDD-Owning X360 users.
The next thing, which is easy too, is improve the UI for Arcade, with possibly a new exclusive Dashboard Blade. There's nothing worse than truding through Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory Exclusive Theme Pack on the Marketplace just to find a new Arcade title. If it's so important (which Arcade is), it needs a easy-to-navigate UI Marketplace, only for Arcade games, and one that users can sort through with Top Sellers, New Games, and Hits - WITH BOXART. Just simply having a name really doesn't help - unless your Uno, or some other easy-to-understand game name (Hold'Em Poker, 3d Golf, PinBall FX - all of which were top-sellers the years they were released).
And of course, one can say the 150mb cap, and the other smaller things, but the UI and advertising are the most important. The Arcade is one of the most fantastic, revolutionary things for Console Gaming, and quite possibly the most definitive thing of this generation (moreso that the WiiMote, since that's on one system, DL Games are on all next-gen systems)...Why not pimp it out and promote the thing?
