For any canessa lovers, I'm sure you're happy to know that he left for a company that proudly supports XBLA.

I don't blame him, they are hot right now! I hope he brings everything over to 360... Anyone play Talismania?

Also who's really addicted to rootbeertapper? I know I am.

Seems like a plus for all parties. Canessa always seemed more into the indy type games and xbla is becoming far more than just that. Really by far the thing xbla is missing today is consistency. They must put out (at least) one game a week (no matter what) to really shut the online community up (IMHO).

more choice would be nice but i hope it never gets as large as say msngames.com

I wonder if he'll try to shift Popcap's strategy and encourage developers to use the 360 as a lead platform instead of using XBLA strictly as a place to port games that have already proven successful on PC.

I'm also curious whether this will make Popcap games any more or less likely to appear on PS3 and Wii. He doesn't mention those platforms in the interview, but it would seem foolish for a company like Popcap to ignore them.

Waiting for XBLA games is a very patience-testing process.

Will there be a game this week? Will it be any good? Will it just be another retro title?

The fact that we are constantly asking these questions, and often asking them until wednesday morning, reflects that the process of publishing XBLA games has been a very slow, difficult, and messy process.

Retail games are often delayed, but most of the time we know what month they're going to be released in, and things generally get clearer when the release date gets closer.

XBLA games, however, seem to disappear for months with little to no explanation.

It may not be Canessa's fault that this process is mostly broken, but it likely IS his fault for not communicating more with gamers about what games to expect and when to look forward to seeing them.

We will see in the coming weeks and months if his replacement can better communicate with gamers and publishers about when XBLA titles will be hitting the service.

The other possibility is that Canessa wanted to make the process more transparent, and MS chose a replacement who will continue the status quo without complaint.

Time will tell.

I think from a business standpoint the delays involved in the xbla certification are more than likely related to the "class" of studio that is putting in these XBLA games and the fact that it is a new system with developers who don't quite know what they need to do for the process yet.

In regards to the "class" of studio is that these xbla games may make more in proportion to cost than the retail titles but they don't make nearly as much or have as big of budgets. The XBLA department probably doesn't have as big of a budget either which leads on both ends to resource issues and the fact that these things do take time.


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Anyways, on to the information I meant to post here....

"Bryan Trussel has been promoted to director of platform game services and will oversee Xbox Live Arcade in addition to other Microsoft Casual Games platforms, including MSN Games and Windows Live Messenger Games. Trussel was most recently the group manager for expanding platforms in the Microsoft Casual Games group, helping to develop and implement the original Xbox Live Arcade product."

I'm not sure if it was Canessa's job to deal with the press or the public face at large for XBLA, but if so then it is certainly time for a change. The fact that "the certification process" has become this hated thing in most of the community is completely unacceptable. It's a freaking testing department for Christ's sake! You're telling me that the company that can convince almost all of the Fortune 500 companies that they need a new Word processor almost every year, can't make people understand that without the dreaded certification, games would be even more broken than they are.

Developers who blame this process for delays in they're games when it finds problems need to be silenced, or at least shown for what they are trying to do, which is releasing that doesn't even meet the barest of requirements.

Sorry for the rant, it's been a really bad day.

Bad day? Yeah, I'm taking the Anna Nicole thing pretty hard myself.

 

As for Canessa... As head of the XBLA platform, It was either his job to deal with the press and be the public face of the XBLA, or it was his job to delegate that responsibility to someone who could competently handle it.

i just want to say as a developer, i hate the testing department in my company =D

who do you work for hexx?

i don't work for a game developer, although i do tinker with stuff in this area on the side. i am a ui developer at a company that makes a popular profession-oriented, non-gaming website found in the usa (there is a similiar product in other countries like the uk from us too, but i don't work on it).

[quote]

 

So I'm watching the local evening news with the In-laws... probably friday night... and they're doing a story about condominium sales in Seattle. (This makes sense as I live just south of Seattle)

Anyway, They start doing "man on the street" style interviews with people that have just moved into a new building.

And right before my eyes, the first person they find to talk to... The man himself... Greg Canessa.

Unfortunately they didn't ask him a thing about gaming, only about his recent purchase of a condo.

I did, however, geek out in front of the In-laws. "Oooh, Greg Canessa! He was the head of Xbox Live Arcade, but he just got fired... err... He just got resigned by Microsoft and now works for Popcap!"

They looked back at me with confusion, and perhaps a little pity.

I just thought I'd mention it here, because... who else is going to understand?

lol, that's so weird that greg canessa was on there.

I hope Greg will have a great time in his new place and that he won't forget XBLA.

 

Julie, Web Designer currently working on the How To Get Huge Erection project.