Xbox Live Arcade Tops $100 Million Worldwide in 2009

February 4, 2010 - Forecasting and Analyzing Digital Entertainment, LLC (FADE) has released its annual report for 2009 for the Xbox Live Arcade market. FADE estimates that XBLA just broke the $100 million USD mark for the year ending 2009, at $103.4 million - a 34% increase from the year prior. Top titles include the fastest selling XBLA title of all time 'Battlefield 1943' which sold over 800,000 copies in the year. According to FADE's forthcoming annual XBLA report, average price of XBLA titles increased rapidly during the year - from a $8.33 average in 2008 to $9.12 in 2009. This increase was strongly reflected in the top 10 list by revenue, with half of the titles featured at or near the $15 price point.

The Xbox Live Arcade market also became more frontloaded, due to incredible sales numbers among 'Summer of Arcade' titles such as 'Trials HD', 'Shadow Complex', and 'Marvel vs. Capcom'. 'Castle Crashers', a 2008 'Summer of Arcade' favorite, saw continued sales throughout 2009 - selling an estimated 485,000 copies during the year, bringing its sales to just under 1,000,000 units sold in total.

FADE believes 2010 will continue to see strong growth with the upcoming Natal launch which will drive new types of Arcade games into gamers' homes, and additional hardware into homes. According to the report, FADE states that average revenue per user was slightly down from 2009, at $2.79 per user. FADE believes the key for Microsoft in 2010 is to continue to increase hardware penetration, which was a critical point of sales increases in 2009.

Estimated Top Titles by Revenue, 2009 (Average Price):

Battlefield 1943 (EA Dice) - $12.5 million ($15.00)
Castle Crashers (The Behemoth) - $7.3 million ($15.00)
Trials HD (RedLynx, LTD) - $7.1 million ($15.00)
Shadow Complex (Chair Entertainment / Epic Games) - $6.1 million ($14.38)
Family Game Night (Hasbro) - $4.2 million ($9.53)
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Capcom) - $4.2 million ($15.00)
Magic: The Gathering (Stainless Games) - $2.8 million ($10.00)
Worms 2 (Team 17) - $1.8 million ($10.00)
Peggle (PopCap Games) - $1.8 million ($8.86)
Turtles in Time: Reshelled (Ubisoft Singapore) - $1.7 million ($10.00)

Source: FADELLC.com

image credit: Gizmodo.com

EA's Glen Schofield, studio manager for the company's Dead Space team at Visceral Games, spoke recently about what they discovered when they looked at how many people actually played Dead Space.

"we ... did studies on sort of how many unique users there were on the PSN network and Xbox Live. And realized, you know what, there's over three million people that have played Dead Space. Maybe we've only sold 1.5 million ..... that means that, ok, there were a lot of used sales"

And there is the reason games cost 69 dollars, because the publisher is only making 35 dollars per customer.

Now if games were non transferrable, and cost 35 dollars, instead of 69, wouldn't everyone be happier?

The BBC is now available on Xbox Live Canada.  Using Zune, Canadian Xbox Live customers can now purchase episodes of top BBC shows including:

Top Gear, Black Adder, Little Britain, Dr.Who, Torchwood, Children of Earth

These titles are among the hottest running series on BBC Worldwide and are the same as what airs on the BBC Canada channel.  The BBC was available to Xbox live users in the UK as early as May 2009 but ZUNE was not yet available in Canada.  BBC Worldwide Canada finalized the deal and the episodes are available for digital download on 01 Feb 2010.

The wildly popular Top Gear series debuts on ZUNE with seasons 11 and 12 at 160 MS points per episode. This works out to approximately $2.20 CAN per episode.

Compare this to $1.99 CAN to download the same episode in HD on iTunes.  Also keep in mind that dowloading to iTunes means that you can view the episode on your computer and your iPhone/iPod Touch.  You can then stream it to your television if you have Apple TV or have your computer connected to a video input on your television.  The Xbox version, in SD, can be viewed immediately on your television and via Windows Media on your PC.

Sony Kick-off SB44 weekend with a nice price drop on Madden NFL Arcade, perfect for pre-game or post-game PS3 action when the guys are over. There is also the head-to-head Super Bowl of FPS demos with Aliens vs. Predator demo and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 mutli-player demo.

The mondo bizzaro Fret Nice from Tecmo brings what I am guessing is Guitar-Gaiden to the PS3. It just looks like a really weird Viewtiful Joe, and they want you to play it with a Rock Band or Guitar Hero peripheral (optionally). At $14.99 it's a risk, but Tecmo were smart to include a demo. The buzz on the twitterverse is that this is worth checking out, but don't take my word for it:

@psnstore

@REMGS

While you are picking up demos, grab Tank Battles. I gushed about this when it was on sale two weeks back. It's classic Intellivision / Atari 2600 top down tank area battles, but with nicer graphics. Also, I totally killed DDGW Ronin in this for about an hour last weekend.

Read more for the full breakdown of what's out this week. @Poxxer