Major Xbox Live Arcade announcements

17 July 2006

Posted by:Ferry

Microsoft’s Xbox Live director Larry Hryb, who’s also known by his gamertag: Major Nelson), did an interview a few days ago speaking up on the future of Xbox Live Arcade.

The main announcements were:
* Live Arcade Wednesdays is a response to consumer demand for more regular content,
* Uno SOLD into “six figures” in two weeks,
* Live Arcade games every Wednesday “from now on” (not just the next five),
* 30 Arcade games by the end of summer, 50 total in 2006,
* More will be announced close after most of the current released games are out,
* Microsoft are increasing the number of games dramatically, and are “moving to a regular release schedule.”

Speaking to Microsoft’s Major Nelson, Canessa explained that Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays is an initiative that’s been done “in direct response to [the Xbox Live] community”.

“We’ve been working pretty much in secret for a number of months on Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays – we did go dark for a little bit”, he revealed, adding: “That’s part of the reason why we’ve had a little bit of a drought over the last couple of months on Xbox Live Arcade.”

According to Canessa, Live Arcade games will be entirely constrained to Wednesdays from now on and will be released at 8:00am GMT. However, Canessa noted that he cannot guarantee that a new title will hit every week: “..there may be a week that we skip and then a week where we release two titles,” he said.