Microsoft had it’s media blowout in Tokyo at the Tokyo International Forum Hall yesterday, and tried (yet again) to get Japanese gamers interested in the XBox 360. While this tactic may or may not pay of for MS, we did get some information about a couple of games coming soon.
First off Eastern developers SNK, Konami and Bandai Namco and Yukes will be bringing offers to XBLA. The first of these will be from Bandai Namco and will be Pac-Man followed by Galaga. While it wasn’t released whether these games would be available in the west, it would be a good guess due to the, shall we say slightly larger, user base here.
You can read more about the media briefing at IGN

Hard OCP has a great interview with Mark Frohnmayer, President of GarageGames, where he discusses the possiblity of Map packs, Game type additions, and a bunch of other downloadable content. While no firm answers were given, and it was revealed that the shipped game cannot, without modification, handle extra maps, there were enough positive answers to believe we’ll be seeing something before there next game is out. My personal favorite question/answer was: Multiplayer Ultra map pack? Strong possibility in the near time frame. So head over and read the interview now

Here is the first of the new (hopefully) weekly features, there will be more features coming down the pipe, but all in good time. Anyways, here is this weeks rumor roundup…
Uno to be developed by Silver Creek Entertainment.
Rumor: When the announcement came out that one of the next games to be released came out of the blue, the rumor mill started turning about who the developer could be. Many sites (this one included) figured that it would have to be the only dev to release any card games to date, Silver Creek Entertainment.
Our Take: We were wrong. According to this post here, Silver Creek has nothing to do with Uno, so were still left guessing as to who it’ll be.
No Rare owned properties will be on the Revolution Virtual Console
Rumor: None of Rare’s IP, including Goldeneye and Killer Instinct will be making it’s way to big “N”s virtual console.
Our Take: Did anyone actually think that this would ever happen? The real question is which of them will make there way to XBLA?

Ok so this one got lost in the GDC buzz, but last week Naked Sky Entertainment, Inc. launched a new site for there upcoming game Roboblitz. While the site still seems to be in the infant stage, it’s good to see that it’s moving along. Most of the news about this game so far seems to be on the technical side and centers around them getting the Unreal Engine 3 into a tiny 50MB. Looking at the screenshots, this game definately looks like it will be in a class of it’s own graphically on XBLA, let’s just hope the gameplay can keep up.

Patrick Klepek over at 1up had a chance to have a chat with Hudson’s online marketing manager, who hinted at the Saturn version of Bomberman being “under evaluation” for release on XBLA. That’s right, the 10 player version may be blasting it’s way to our arcade at home. The one thing to note though is as the linked post states: “in no way is it currently happening, nor are there any plans to release it.” Read the whole article here

Last week at the GDC, IGN’s Jonathan Miller got a chance to chat with Hector Fernandez, the chief creative officer at Streamline Studios. While there’s still no firm details released about when the game is coming out, Fernandez certainly does paint the game in an extremely fun filled light. Read the whole article here.

xbox360Poker has become the first official affiliate of XBLArcade.com. They run a great site that has tonnes of info about the upcoming XBLA hold’em title sponsered by River Belle. Once the game is released, they will also be running tournaments, so stay tuned.
If there are any other XBLA news/info sites out there looking to become affiliates, please feel free to drop us a line at affiliate@xblarcade.com

Jeremy Throckmorton and Steve Taylor of NinjaBee let us fire a few questions at them and came up with some interesting answers, including a great line by Jeremy that will certainly become a standard question in all of our upcoming interviews: “Is a game from ten years ago a threat to a truly new and unique game?”

[XBLArcade.com] Could you please say who you are and what your role in the company is?
[Jeremy] Hi. My name is Jeremy Throckmorton, and I’m one of the NinjaBee designers. For anyone who wants to look me up on Xbox Live, my gamertag is Marmosetofdeath.
[Steve] I’m Steve Taylor (gostay on Xbox Live). I’m a programmer, and part of the team that made Outpost Kaloki X.
[XBLArcade.com] Did Wahoo submit an application to Microsoft to be part of XBLA or did Microsoft come to you?
[Steve] Sort of both. I had known Ross Erickson for a few years, and we started talking to him in general about possibilities for projects we could do with Microsoft. One of the things Ross suggested was XBLA, and after very little discussion it was clear what a fantastic opportunity this would be for Outpost Kaloki. Since Outpost Kaloki was originally designed as a console title, this was an amazing chance to realize the original vision we had for the game, and we jumped on it.
[XBLArcade.com] Will you have a booth at E3? and if so will you be showing off existing or upcoming properties?
[Steve] We won’t have our own booth at E3, but some of the things that we’re working on now (as Wahoo Studios and as NinjaBee) will be showing there, including, we hope, NinjaBee’s next XBLA game.
[XBLArcade.com] What are some of the biggest differences between developing for an XBLA game as opposed to a regular game?
[Jeremy] A Live Arcade game is smaller to a regular Xbox 360 game in just about every conceivable way. I guess it could be argued that size is the only real difference. For us at the NinjaBee hive, that means the budget is smaller, the development schedule is shorter, and the data size of the game has to be kept way down. When compared to other 360 games even the number of Achievements and Gamerpoints we can award is smaller. Fortunately, the one thing that doesn’t change is the focus on fun and gameplay. In some ways the smaller scope makes it easier for us to focus on the gameplay more than we could with a larger game.

It seems that John Porcaro from Gamerscore blog was lucky enough to get a chance to play an early copy of Texas Hold’em. Not only did he get to play, but he snapped a couple of shots off as well. The two shots are up on his flickr site here and here. While there don’t seem to be that many bells and whistles, do you really need any for Poker as long as they can keep the “all-in all the time” people away.
UPDATE: Matt Gerlach has posted two more pictures on his site here.

According to Major Nelson’s post here Astropop has been released. Here’s the features according to the XBox Site:
Fire your rockets and blast off to fast-paced, arcade-puzzle action! Astropop™ blends fast twitch challenge with an offbeat, fun storyline. Choose from four space pilots, each with unique abilities and weaponry. Then grab, group, and blast bricks to create combos and clear a path to the stars. As you progress, a mysterious link between the pilots unfolds against a backdrop of spectacular graphics, captivating sound effects, and myriads of scoring opportunities. Astropop’s two different gameplay modes, coupled with 33 challenging bonus rounds, offers hours of extraordinary replay value for players of all ages and skill levels.
Considering this was supposed to be out in Feb. it’s good to see.