Xbox Live Arcade (or XBLA ) was a video game digital distribution service that was available for the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles. It focused on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers. Titles on the service ranged from previously released arcade and console games to brand new games designed for the service, and were priced from a range of 5 to 20 US dollars . While originally requiring a disc to gain access to the service on the original Xbox, the Arcade was integrated into the Xbox 360 along with the rest of the Xbox Live Marketplace (later renamed Xbox Games Store) with the launch of the new console.
25-545: PopCap Arcade Vol. 1 and PopCap Arcade Vol. 2 are retail packages of four and three Xbox Live Arcade games from PopCap Games , released exclusive in North America . The disc works by inserting it into the console just like any other game. However, rather than directly launching any of the titles, it adds four items to the Xbox Live Arcade menu with a small disc icon next to each name. On June 3, 2010,
50-417: A Friend" messages. The original size limit imposed by Microsoft for Xbox Live Arcade games was 50 MB, in order to ensure any downloaded game could fit on a 64 MB Xbox memory unit . The limit has since been changed to 150 MB, then 350 MB, and now 2 GB, the latter of which is a technical limitation of the system (rather than an arbitrary limit imposed by Microsoft). On September 12, 2012
75-567: A compilation of both volumes was released exclusively in Japan, titled PopCap Arcade: Rakushisa, Ippai, Action & Puzzle 7 Pack . In 2011, PopCap Hits! Vol. 1 and PopCap Hits! Vol. 2 (not to be confused with the PlayStation 2 compilations with the same names) were published by Mastertronic exclusively in European regions. Compared to PopCap Arcade, Peggle replaces Zuma in
100-706: A game created by three Microsoft interns, TotemBall , a game that can only be played with the Xbox Live Vision camera, Yaris (a Toyota -backed advergame ), and Dash of Destruction , which was released on December 17, 2008, as a Doritos advergame . On November 30, 2007, Microsoft introduced "Xbox Live Arcade Hits", where games are permanently reduced in price (a similar concept to their "Platinum Hits" for regular retail Xbox 360 games). As of July 22, 2008, current Arcade Hits include Lumines Live! , Assault Heroes , Zuma , Doom , Bankshot Billiards 2 , Small Arms , Puzzle Quest: Challenge of
125-470: A physical memory barrier for a process running on a 32-bit operating system, which can only use a maximum of 2 GB of memory. The problem mainly affects 32-bit versions of operating systems like Microsoft Windows and Linux , although some variants of the latter can overcome this barrier. It is also found in servers like FTP servers or embedded systems like Xbox . The use of Physical Address Extension ( PAE ) can overcome this barrier by extending
150-638: A prize draw with a grand prize of 100,000 Microsoft Points , 12 Month Xbox Live Gold subscription, and an Xbox 360 Elite console. Another Summer of Arcade began the next year on July 22, 2009. Anyone who purchases all the titles released ( 'Splosion Man , Marvel vs. Capcom 2 , TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled , Trials HD and Shadow Complex ) will receive an 800-point reward. The next Summer of Arcade began on July 21, 2010, and features Limbo , Hydro Thunder Hurricane , Castlevania: Harmony of Despair , Monday Night Combat and Lara Croft and
175-535: Is limited to exactly 2 gibibytes , or roughly 2GB. While Linux, FreeBSD , and most Unix-like operating systems support PAE so long as the hardware does, Windows needs this boot option enabled manually because many device drivers are incompatible with PAE. This is known as 4-gigabyte tuning (4GT), or the /3GB switch. Once enabled, executables can have the "large address aware" flag set to increase their memory limit to 3 GB. 32-bit processes on 64-bit Windows are also limited to 2 GB. However, they can use
200-487: The 2 GB limit was raised to an unknown number with two titles, Red Johnson's Chronicles and Double Dragon Neon weighing at 2.68 GB and 2.24 GB, respectively. On July 12, 2006, Microsoft launched the "Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays" program, which promised a new Arcade game to be launched every Wednesday for the rest of that Summer. When that summer ended, Microsoft announced that new titles for XBLA would also be released on Wednesdays. In order to promote
225-660: The Xbox One did not carry the Arcade branding over, and following the closure of the Xbox Live services for the original Xbox in 2010 and the Xbox Games Store in 2024, the Xbox Live Arcade branding is effectively defunct. The Xbox Live Arcade service was officially announced on May 12, 2004, at Microsoft's E3 press conference and launched on November 6, 2004, for the original Xbox game console. The XBLA software
250-461: The Guardian of Light . A "Shopping Spree" promotion ended November 1, 2010, in which anyone who spent over 2400 points during October 2010 received an 800-point reward. By March 10, 2006, three million downloads had been made on the service. By January 30, 2007, that number had grown to 20 million. The service reached 25 million downloads on March 6, 2007 with 45 million downloads projected by
275-711: The Night , and Contra . With Xbox One , Microsoft has decided to forgo placing different types of games in different channels. As such, Microsoft has discontinued use of the Arcade moniker, instead grouping all types of games (would-be Arcade titles, retail, and indies) together. Xbox Live Arcade titles range in price from $ 2.50 to $ 20 with the vast majority selling for $ 10 and under. The games are generally aimed towards more casual gamers, striving for "pick up and play" appeal. Several games were temporarily free, including Texas Hold 'em , Carcassonne , and Undertow . Others are permanently free including Aegis Wing ,
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#1732802502591300-480: The Warlords , and Marble Blast Ultra . On June 24, 2011 video game website 1UP.com reported that Microsoft was preparing to bring free-to-play games to Xbox Live and said games will include a microtransaction service. The first free-to-play game, Happy Wars , was released on October 12, 2012. In May 2007, Microsoft announced that games older than six months would become eligible for delisting from
325-481: The addresses used to represent mappings between virtual and physical memory. The limit is created by the 32-bit integer limit (2,147,483,647), which is the largest possible integer that can be represented by 32 binary digits. In a computer with a 32-bit architecture , the memory address stored in one of the CPU registers will be limited to this number, thus the number of possible memory locations that can be addressed
350-421: The end of 2007. On March 27, 2007, Microsoft declared Uno to be the first Xbox Live Arcade game to exceed one million downloads. Nearly 70 percent of Xbox 360 owners connected to Xbox Live have downloaded an Arcade title with the attach rate being 6–7 titles per user. Original games typically receive 350,000 downloads in the first month. Titles have an average 156% financial return over twelve months with
375-453: The end of the year. Once connected to Xbox Live , customers could purchase additional titles by using a credit card , or download a limited trial version of a game. Prices for the games range from $ 4.99 to $ 14.99. 11 titles were japanese exclusive as download, but released also as physical versions. On November 22, 2005, XBLA was relaunched on the Xbox 360 . The service was integrated into
400-510: The first two months of sales accounting for just 35% of total volume. Average conversion rate (from trial download to purchase) across all titles is 18% (a low of 4% and high of 51%). On September 19, 2007, Microsoft announced the top ten Arcade downloads worldwide as Aegis Wing , Uno , Texas Hold 'em , Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved , Bankshot Billiards 2 , Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 Classic Arcade , Worms , Castlevania: Symphony of
425-530: The first volume; as a result, Zuma is on the second volume instead of the first, and Peggle is not on the second volume. The second volume also includes Plants vs. Zombies , which is not on either of the PopCap Arcade collections. Xbox Live Arcade As of October 2016, there had been 719 Xbox Live Arcade titles released for the Xbox 360, with 27 being released for the original Xbox. The release of
450-452: The full game. A full version of the game must be purchased to allow the user to upload scores to the leaderboards, unlock achievements, play online multiplayer (with a few exceptions), and download bonus content. Several new features and enhancements have been added through software updates including a friends leaderboard, additional sorting options, faster enumeration of games, an auto-download feature for newly released trial games, and "Tell
475-457: The main Dashboard user interface, and the Xbox 360 hard drives were bundled with a free copy of Hexic HD . Every Arcade title on the Xbox 360 supports leaderboards, has 200 Achievement points, and high-definition 720p graphics. They also have a trial version available for free download. These demos are playable and most of them offer only a fraction of the levels, modes, and content of
500-500: The purchase by Warner Bros. of some assets of Midway Games, including certain rights related to the nine games. Id Software 's Doom was pulled from the catalogue due to Id being purchased by publisher ZeniMax Media , and as such the publishing rights were removed from then publisher Activision . From January 19, 2012, Doom was restored to Xbox Live Arcade under new publisher Bethesda . In 2011, Ubisoft announced that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled
525-571: The service if they had a Metacritic score below 65 and a conversion rate below 6%. The objective was to "focus the catalogue more on larger, more immersive games and make it much easier to find the games you are looking for." However, Microsoft has never removed a game using this method. In February 2010, it was announced that nine games from Midway Games would no longer be available for purchase, "due to publisher evolving rights and permissions" (even though Sony's PlayStation Store never did as such with its own downloadable Midway games), referring to
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#1732802502591550-426: The service in retail, Microsoft released Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1 as a compilation disc of six games. On October 18, 2007, Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 Arcade console SKU which includes full versions of Boom Boom Rocket , Feeding Frenzy , Luxor 2 , Pac-Man Championship Edition , and Uno . On May 22, 2008, Microsoft's general manager of Xbox Live , Marc Whitten, detailed changes for
575-573: The service that included increasing the size limit of the games to 350MB and "improving" the way digital rights management is handled. Furthermore, Microsoft created an internal games studio to create "high quality digital content" for XBLA. On July 30, 2008, Microsoft announced the XBLA Summer of Arcade. Anyone who downloaded one of the titles released over August, ( Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 , Braid , Bionic Commando Rearmed , Galaga Legions and Castle Crashers ) would be entered into
600-572: Was due to be removed from the Xbox Live service on June 30, 2011, due to an expired license. Chessmaster Live has also been removed. On December 15, 2013, Capcom announced on their blog that Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 would be removed from the XBLA store. Although no specific date was listed, the last date for DLC for these titles was listed as December 26, 2013. 2 GB limit The 2 GB limit refers to
625-620: Was obtained by ordering it on Microsoft's website. It was sent by mail on a disc that also contained a free version of the Ms. Pac-Man video game. To generate greater publicity for the service, the disc was also distributed with special issues of the Official Xbox Magazine and as part of the Forza Motorsport Xbox console bundle The service launched with six titles and expanded its library to twelve titles by
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