Microsoft: XBLA Summer Releases Boosted Buyers 58 Percent

Xbox Live's "Summer of Arcade," a five-week block of high-profile Xbox Live Arcade releases beginning early August, brought a 58 percent increase in unique members purchasing titles, says Microsoft. The promotion also helped Xbox Live Arcade reach record monthly revenue, making August the highest-grossing month for the service to date, 67 percent over the previous record month. Summer of Arcade's marquee titles include Activision's Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Microsoft Game Studios's Braid, Capcom's Bionic Commando Rearmed, Namco Bandai's Galaga Legions, and The Behemoth's Castle Crashers. Microsoft noted that it still has several big Xbox Live Arcade games scheduled for the coming months, such as Valve's Portal: Still Alive, Xbox Live Productions/DoubleSix's South Park, and Irem/Tozai's R-Type Dimensions. "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," says Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten. "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."