Over the course of the five-week Summer of Arcade program there was a 58% increase in unique members purchasing titles, and August broke the monthly revenue high by 67%. August was also the first time that an Xbox LIVE Arcade game landed in the top 3 most-viewed pages on Xbox.com. The reason for all of this success? The games were really good.
“Castle Crashers,” an adventure title that came to the service on Aug. 27, currently sits at the No. 1 spot for the Top 10 Xbox LIVE Arcade games being played on the service today. In fact, it is being called a stand-out title for all of Xbox LIVE Arcade. “Braid,” a puzzle-platformer released on Aug. 6 quickly climbed the charts to become the No. 1 highest-rated game of all time on Xbox LIVE Arcade. “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2” and “Bionic Commando: Rearmed” also have spots in the Top 10!
“At E3, we committed to re-focusing the Xbox LIVE Arcade business, vowing to release bigger and better games while focusing on quality and not quantity,” said Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox LIVE. “The debut of the new strategy proved to be a huge success, with the Summer of Arcade making August the highest grossing month to date. But the focus on quality games doesn’t stop with the Summer of Arcade. We have plenty more great titles coming out in the next few months and beyond that we think will continue to fuel this incredible momentum.”
The service is geared up to continue on the record-breaking path with even more blockbuster titles, like “Portal: Still Alive,” “South Park” and “R-Type Dimensions,” slated to hit Xbox LIVE Arcade in the coming months.
Looks like this winter could be heating up…