Announcements

First, there was PopCap Games (aka "#1 developer on XBLA"). Then, PlayFirst decided to get in on the act. And now, it's RealNetwork's turn. This past week, RealNetworks announced plans to bring their stable of casual games to all the major console download platforms.

While no major announcement (or overblown press release) has appeared yet, this tidbit was confirmed in GameDaily's interview with Erik Goossens, RealNetwork's VP of Game Content. When asked about RealArcade's games appearing on consoles he replied that work on those games "is happening as we speak."

The only real questions left are "which?" and "when?". Which games will they bring over? And when will they arrive? When is truly anyone's guess at this point. The question of which games are coming is more complicated because Real Arcade serves as a portal for games developed by other companies that already have a relationship with Xbox Live Arcade. That list includes PopCap Games (e.g., Bejeweled, Atomica, Insaniquarium), MumboJumbo (Luxor 2), PlayFirst (e.g., Chocolatier) and Sandlot Games (Cake Mania).

Slice it any way you want, XBLA will be getting a ton of casual game content in the coming year. Are you casual enough to handle it?

Full list of Real Arcade games here.

[via GameDaily]

Apparently their Labor Day sale was a success because Microsoft is lowering the price of three more arcade games. And this time the sale lasts a whole week.

The rundown: Bankshot Billiards 2 goes from 1200MSP to 900MSP, Frogger from 400MSP to 300MSP, and Hardwood Spades also drops from 400MSP to 300MSP.

Get 'em while they're hot though because the sale only runs from "12:00 a.m. GMT on Wednesday, September 26 (5:00 p.m. PDT on Thursday, September 27) and continuing through 11: 59 p.m. GMT (4:59 p.m. PDT) on Tuesday, October 2."

Timezones confuse me so I just quoted them.

Also available this Wednesday is the Bomberman Live! Bomb-Up Pack 2, featuring Destructoid's fearless mascot.

Could this mean that we're not getting a fresh new game this week? I wouldn't blame any publisher from shying away from releasing this week for obvious reasons but we need XBLA games to break up the marathon multiplayer sessions.

Who's buyin'?

Press Release after the break.

[via Gamerscoreblog]

While at Tokyo Game Show promoting Lair, head of Factor 5, Julian Eggebrecht was cornered by Gamasutra's Brandon Sheffield and forced to endure a question that had nothing to do with Lair or the PS3's motion controls. The question was about bringing Factor 5's past into the future.

Specifically, Turrican. Even more specifically, he was asked about bringing a hi-res Turrican to console download platforms. His response?

Yeah absolutely, both for XBLA and PSN, it’d be fantastic. I think that probably a high-res Turrican more based on the Amiga Turricans would be great on those platforms. We obviously have the Virtual Console out there on the Nintendo side, and that’d obviously work well for the Genesis and Super Nintendo Turricans. So yeah, we’re talking!

There you have it. Hi-res Turrican (based on the Amiga versions), under discussion. Any total cynic out there with a reason this would not be a good thing?

[via Gamasutra, thanks Kornicos]

To make it easy to catch up on all of XBLArcade's news, views, and coverage of your favorite console download service, we’ve lumped our news into one streamlined post. Everything is in chronological order; it’s like reliving the week one post at a time.

Like the idea? Hate it? Either way, give us feedback in the comments below or email us through our tips line (or just email us at Contact@XBLArcade.com).

More news out of Tokyo. This time, it's SNK Playmore announcing their upcoming lineup. Plenty for fans to be excited about but of particular interest is their upcoming XBLA offering: Samurai Shodown 2. (Or is it Samurai Shodown II?)

Oh, yeah, and some other stupid title called Metal Slug 3.

The Metal Slug 3 news is so last month, so let us concern ourselves with Samurai Shodown 2. SS2 is considered by some to be one of the greatest games of all time but how will the XBLA version fare against history and nostalgia?

Here's what inquiring minds want to know:

Will this game be a direct arcade port? It's SNK, so it better be.

But more importantly, will the game still be filled with engrish? If so, I declare "Victoly"!

[via Gaming Age, thanks insane_cobra]

This past week, Eidos New Media brought us GEON: Emotions. Little did I know, that they already announced another game: Fractal Jigsaw. Worse still, they may have even shown the game at the Leipzig Games Convention back in August. Not sure how, but this one slipped through the cracks.

The best (and only) image I could fine of the game shows what appears to be a simple jigsaw puzzle game sporting a Hitman-themed puzzle. Looks like Eidos is leveraging their franchises to make this one more appealling. Could Agent 47's grimace coerce you into buying a puzzle game? Perhaps some candid Lara Croft snaps are more your speed? Maybe you're just hoping that the game includes actual fractals?

Whatever you might fancy, the original press release states the game is slated for Q2 2008 (linked below). Guess you've got a while to wait before you can get your mitts on Lara Fractal Jigsaw.

English translation of the game's press release blurb after the break.

[via Press Release]

In Japan you can acquire all kinds of products and services on the cheap. Broadband is very cheap, hotels can be rented by the hour (of course that's true here sometimes too), and then there's the Simple Series of video games.

The Simple Series comprises budget titles for every last-gen system under the sun. They churn these games out faster than humanly possible (it's widely believed that Simple is run by evil cyborgs) and delivery basic gameplay and visuals for a very cheap price. The games may not be anything to write home about, but they are cheap. I cannot emphasis that enough -- cheap.

And now they're heading to XBLA. Kotaku milked a D3 (publisher of the Simple Series) rep for information and here's what they found out. At least two Simple games are heading to XBLA. They may or may not be branded as part of the Simple Series. They will be cheap!

No word on what the games are, when they will arrive, or if they will even arrive in the West at all. We will just have to wait and see if they can squeeze some localization into the Simple budget.

[via Kotaku]