I think some of you may have missed the point that Raigan was trying to make. What a lot of developers are annoyed about is that at the time of the interview it was incredibly hard to get a game on the service, yet the games that were appearing on it weren't that good (in our opinion of course). On top of that they had just announced that the royalty rates were going to be cut, meaning now only the big publishers would be able to put their games on that service, meaning more of the games that we consider not so good.

He was definitely *not* smack talking other games to make our own game look better. At the time of the interview, our game wasn't even out on the service yet, so we had no idea what the sales were going to be, for all we knew, it could have tanked.

And as a side note, we are *not* the "anonymous" developer" that the article is talking about. The sentiment described above was VERY prevalent with all developers during GDC, he just happened to bring it up in an interview.

Cheers!
Nick

NickWaanders

Justcrim

dolo54

What about a nice cup of ..? guys?

Tei

Harteex

So what's all this nonsense about 'finding good games among all the shit' we keep hearing here. From what a lot of you are saying, XBLA doesn't even have 5 games worth owning. There's at least 60 titles and personally I own WELL over 20. That's more games than most people own for their consoles PERIOD.

Do you have 20 wii/ps3/DS games?

Do you people who say that kind of stuff even own an XBOX 360? I'm starting to think this is still some shitty console war gratuitous bashing.

interstate78

Look, you guys get demos of EVERY Arcade game, mandatory. There is no excuse for buying bad games.

Edge of Blade

alanmusician

dead_red_eyes

Crawl to China

XBLA games have a budget of 1-3% of what full retail games cost. The fact that there are *many* fun and interesting titles out there on XBLA speaks highly of those developers, no matter what the N guy thinks.

Candle

@Fisketryne: If a bad case of unwarranted self-importance is calling it like it is, then you're right. When the folks at XBLA let something along the lines of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing get released, then maybe his argument would have some substance...

ekkobi

dude, you can't even learn to walljump properly in 5 minutes of playing N/N+

...the game is jampacked with so many features... i just think you are full of shit.

i mean sure... maybe they complained a little too loudly, but that game is BY NO STRETCH of the imagination, a boring, or less than amazing game.

joelface

Pombar

Fisketryne

Ganndd

Putting a game on XBLA is an investment.

Sunjammer

That being said, I really wish there were more original, interesting titles as well as more old-score ports. It's getting there, maybe - and Microsoft really needs to keep being lenient with that size-cap.

sir_carrot

Gray665

N had been out for ages and the XBLA platform gave him (and many others) another chance to rerelease it and actually make some money from his indie development, something that is practically unheard of.

And the fact is, there are alot of games available on XBLA that are actually pretty good, sure we've got some bad games but are you surprised?

And i'm going to be frank now, N and N+ are actually boring themselves.

Cool for about five minutes, but completely short lived and unexciting. There, I said it.

Elitist Jerks.

JamesR87

Sunjammer

If anything, it's the really top notch stuff that distorts the quality of XBLA, not the other way around. Of course we're all hoping for that balance to tilt at some point but to come in there right now and expect to become part of a PANTHEON of budget gaming GODS is a little unrealistic.

Sunjammer

Me and my husband actually have quite a large library going, and I like how there's a little something for everyone, whether it be Small Arms or the occasional Popcap port. Heck, my mom loves Xbox Live Arcade, and I even got her an Xbox last christmas because of it.

Policroma

L_K_M

they throw in "p.s - we're not "fanboys" as some have accused.. we just can't afford a PS3 yet! SSD:HD is pretty crap though, so it looks like Sony aren't immune either."

I almost choked on my coffee. One of the best arcade shooters on either console is pretty crap?

Sorry boys,
int credibilityScale = 0;

PhysicalEd

What he wants? That XBLA was just composed of 10 games? WTF is he thinking?

Anyway, maybe N+ would sell better if there was no free flash game on the PC.

JediMaster

Johnny Sailor

Too bad it's pure crap...

Eiger

okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under)

your loss buddy. not that you'd be good enough to beat more than the first few episodes anyways, im sure.

joelface

This is where PSN takes the lead, quality over quantity.

Stormbringer

MetalGearMax

Demaar

Maximus9

Grey_Fox

josh924

interficium

@interstate78:
Thing is, developers were (are?) having issues getting games certified for release on the platform, and they only release like a game a week. Why is there still utter shit being released on there?

Demaar

Tuxy79

For the price of one 360 game, you can get 6-12 XBLA titles with only a few games costing more than 800 points.

I think it's a great way to extend my gaming time. sometimes I'll finish playing and end up in my Arcade folder playing one game after another, trying to beat my friends list's highscores.

I really love XBLA

interstate78

However, there is a lot of good titles and remakes as well. Id say there are more good titles than bad ones, but I guess thats just me.

RuneX

Cutedge

It's a less challenging (and less fun) version of Lode Runner. With pixel blood.

Yeah, dude, you're an f'ing genius.

Juminatriascala

baked ham

Oyn

Oyn

Grey_Fox

liquidnumb

/after that, I became a lot more picky of my XBLA purchases.

lordargent

Oyn

The royalty rate cut only affects first party MICROSOFT xbla games. Even that isnt so bad since Microsoft just covers most of the cost of development now.

NutManIV

-AS

Archaic Stigma

It's still great. Fantastic, even. But the PSP, PSN, PSone, and Saturn versions are all better.

baked ham

Seriously... If your wondering why your game called N+ didn't sell well against a game like Frogger, you need to snap back to reality for a second here.

The issue is, who the hell knew N+ was coming out to XBLA, let alone what N+ was? You can't account for the people who read Kotaku, because I'm sure its not a large majority of Xbox Users. Maybe if there was better advertising for XBLA games, it would be different.

ParadoxControl

Cchrist

ThisIsSick

Poltergeist13

Cchrist

I believe everyone should be given opportunity in doing what they want and the best of the best will clearly stand out. If it doesn't then someone will create a means to do so, like awards or a special section to honor the unique.

Of course a blog like this is also good for doing just that, and the opposite as well.

Absent Blue

Cchrist

thaKingRocka

ThisIsSick

Cchrist

As for the other services, it will be a long time before we know on PSN... so slow to get new games. Perhaps the quality will be better for it. But, Wii-ware is going to slam us with releases and already many look interesting if not great. I see the clear division of VC and fresh games to be a boon in clarifying the debate as well.

cybereal

i suppose they were initially going to be the same game, and they are certainly similar in objective...

..but because the various hardware all have different strengths and weaknesses, they began to tailor the experiences to each specific one.

the 360 clearly has the better "look", and you can even zoom in to different degrees on the xbla version. although the psp and ds versions have an alternate "classic" look which resembles the original flash version.

in any case, the different screen sizes basically demand that they have different looks and levels.

joelface

Pornosaur

otimus

ceilingFANBOY

Cchrist

Greetings,
Me

P.S. Your game sucks.

Cchrist

n+ is amazing, but its still looking for a huge audience.

thats the difference

@c-lin' Fanboy:

admittedly they will probably have several similarities.. but the graphics are CERTAINLY a lot different. they are even made by different companies.

atari is the one making the psp and ds versions... slick (or something like that) made the xbla version. so there are CERTAINLY differences.. they even control differently, and have different settings..

joelface

v-rus

I wonder, when they decide to make a game that isn't a Flash port, will they actually put out something good, to rise above all the shit? Or will they put out something that's an utter failure? I get the impression that if their next game flops, he'll be like "Oh, our game didn't get enough exposure because there's so much crap on XBL, waaahh"

Nedus

ceilingFANBOY

its not the same game... the xbla version is totally different.

all 3 versions have entirely different levels.

joelface

ceilingFANBOY

Pitter

Pound my tom-tom

HAGE

HAGE

dandd

Wolfers

ceilingFANBOY

Oyn

Oyn

ShaggE

i just hope sony doesn't put their head up their ass, and instead, actively pursue metanet about getting N+ or even a new version (n++, maybe?) when the xbla exclusivity contract ends..

joelface

It will happen, just in time.

ceilingFANBOY

Can't argue about the the Yaris game though, I find it hard to believe anyone could like it.

aka Bitter

neocutter

Collapse The Control

Except Yaris. Yeah. Just AWFUL.

Mica

By the way I love N+, and XBLA would be a much higher % of shit without it.

supercrap

celery

ryivanV2

okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under)

NeoStarr

Collapse The Control

I just thought that was a very misleadingly-worded post myself.

beat89

N+ will come to PSN, I think the developers will probably move on to that for what they have commented.

Gitarooman

The one thing I find about this guys views are the pure hypocrisy of it. Sure he's made a lot of money on XBLA but when things are standing in the way of him making more from the massive amount of press his game is getting compared to the typical Arcade game, I'm sure he has a lot to be unhappy about. What a fucking shame.

okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under)

I think many devs are getting a little bent out of shape because many of the games they consider "shit," are the classics that are selling so well.

If Microsoft would just get its head out of its ass and focus on getting a set release schedule at least a month in advance. Also, sales would rise if MS would at least give many of these titles out for review purposes.

Every week we hear about what's coming out, but 95% of the people that use XBLA have no clue what the titles are. Hence the reason that Dig Dug sells so well.

KimFidler

mikeluisortega

ErskinPig

Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc

And I don't know why I'd buy an N+ download, considering it's A) coming to DS and PSP in physical media, and B)Available for FREE on PC.

RawSteelUT

kojirodensetsu

KM91

Gitarooman

uranutan

@jayntampa: I agree with you as well. He does sound like his temper may have gotten the best of him. You know what else I find strange. Burns goes on to say; "There were 30 games on Live Arcade. If N was one of them, it would stand out. Now there's like a hundred games, and they're all shit."

If that's the case wouldn't his game stand out even more. I know that I personally noticed N+ above the rest of the cookie cutter content. So why is he complaining?

Mikey G

Bernard McGraw

It makes his statements that much more arrogant. He's already got massive success with his game, but he can't stop himself from complaining that the rest of Arcade isn't as good as he is.

QualityJeverage

I guess they're just wishing there was a higher quality bar for XBL games. I could get behind that. Microsoft allowing runny, reeky, TOXIC shit like that Yaris game on XBL isn't doing anybody any favors.

Z-Word

Mr. Mastodon Farm

Look at Castle Crashers. That game isnt even close to being out yet and there is like a virtual line of people ready to gobble that game down for every cent that it's worth

ArmyofJuan

NAAAOOO!!!

joelface

Every medium has competition ... to blame that his game doesn't stand out isn't Live's fault. Look at books, DVDs, and CDs ... everyone is fighting for the consumer's eye. Unfortunately, as good as N and N+ might be, they are niche games. Games like that will always have problems in some regard.

For example, I spent 400 points on the TMNT arcade ... it's an old game, but has tons of nostalgia for me. I could buy 2 games like that for the 800 points of N+. Maybe they should have considered a better price point or a marketing component.

I'm sorry if this seems like a rant, I just don't have much patience for people who while about the delivery system for their product when they knew full well what the environment was like.

jayntampa

Redface, The Dark Messiah of Justice

Rika Aiuchi is SeXXXy

One and the same, Abdar. One and the same. ;)

kuraitenshikun

If you don't like what M$ provides with XBL and such.. don't use it! Fn crybabies...

Abdar

excel_excel

Fyren

Most of them are.

But the good ones then stand out more, right?

Kaemon

Taco Bell™