Summer of Arcade sales spike 200%

September 22, 2009 12:08PM PDT

Five-week downloadable game lineup that included Shadow Complex, MVC2, Trials HD pushes Xbox Live to record monthly revenues; 1 vs. 100 vs. 3 million.

Microsoft has seen significant success with its Summer of Arcade promotion. During its initial run in August 2008, the Xbox Live Arcade promotion heralded the release of such acclaimed downloadable titles as Braid, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, and Castle Crashers. The string of hits boosted Xbox Live revenues by 67 percent over the same period in 2007, according to Microsoft.

Shadow Complex was a bigger winner in August.

This year's Summer of Arcade, which began with the July 22 release of Twisted Pixel's Splosion Man and continued through the August 19 bow of Epic Games' Shadow Complex, has also seen healthy returns. Microsoft said this week that 2009's Summer of Arcade set a new monthly revenue record for the service, with sales spiking 200 percent over last year's program.

Save for Splosion Man's $10 (800 MSP) price tag, the remaining four games in Microsoft's Summer of Arcade promotion run for $15 (1,200 MSP). On July 29, Capcom added Marvel vs. Capcom 2, with Ubisoft's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-shelled following on August 5, and RedLynx's Trials HD joining the pack on August 12.

Microsoft further noted that three of the top-five biggest debuts on Xbox Live were Shadow Complex, Trials HD, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Trials HD, and then Shadow Complex, also secured Xbox Live records for most-downloaded single-player games during their first week, Microsoft said.

The June 1 launch of Microsoft's free-to-play 1 vs. 100 community game has also seen success, with the publisher stating that the trivia title has accrued nearly 3 million downloads. According to Microsoft, 1 vs. 100's adoption rate puts it within the top 10 most popular game-related downloads on Xbox Live, and more than 500,000 people play on average each week.

By Tom Magrino

Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.

Follow @TMag_GS

18 comments

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IrishBulldog93

why have the left out one of the best arcade games ?? battlefield 1943 ?? hello it sold a lot 2 ?? now its sonic and knuckles time in the spotlight !!!!

oskuuu

no wonder, finally great & original games to download, just make more great games like shadow complex =)

Excedra

great

vdoman

Shadow Complex is an awesome game for ONLY 15 bucks! A much better value than most of the full price retail games nowadays.

Jericho66

Did they justify the 1200msp price tag? I'm interested to hear feedback as I didn't buy any but was turned off the idea of even considering to due to the elevated price.

Calmed_Fury

did they announce when they will be reimbursing everyone that bought all 5 games?

chikahiro94

Hopefully Sony will do a similar promotion. I say the more good games that get promoted/highlighted like this on both system, the more gamers win out :)

green_dominator

Good for them.... Shadow Complex is awesome, Summer of Arcade is a good marketing tool, It's a good way to promote new and previously released games......

bleat

How much did Microsoft pay for this story?

Jaysonguy

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a 800 point game since launch, not sure why it's mentioned as a 1200 point title

XenoLair

I should have bought Shadow Complex... only bought Trials HD - nice addictive game :D

konradak

Good stuff! Glad it was a success, there were a lot of good games released. Can't wait to see what they have in store next year :D

lamprey263

people under estimate the value of these downloadable games, their loads of fun, I think XBL has a good and expansive selection, PSN also has some choice titles, even the Wii has a few besides the countless classics on Wii VC; there's a lot of cheap satisfaction to be had for $5-15 when between dry spells of must have $60 titles

hatieshorrer

@Torque203 Thats a pleasant thought I also think MS made a good decision in buying RARE but I was under the impression that Nintendo kept the rights to the PerfectDark game but let RARE keep the rights to the franchise.

Darkmoone1

Shadow Complex and Splosion Man. That is all.

Torque203

cant wait for PERFECT DARK to hit the arcade. im glad microsoft bought RARE

unreal_master

Shadowcomplex was amazing hoping Dlc falls thru and another title in the series

raahsnavj

Bite sized games that are fun to play during the busy 'get outside' summer time months see success again. Looking forward to next year already :)

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