Summer Of Arcade boosts XBLA sales by 200%

And who says good games can’t be found on Xbox Live Arcade? After Microsoft’s ‘Summer Of Arcade’ campaign, sales have jumped 200% compared to last year. Not a huge surprise when you take into account that the period in question featured the likes of Shadow Complex, Trials HD, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, TMNT: Turtles In Time Re-Shelled, The Secret Of Monkey Island and the mighty Battlefield 1943 (although Microsoft doesn’t officially count that), with the first three managing to break into the top five bestselling week-one XBLA games ever. As you would expect, 1 vs. 100 was also exceedingly popular, this side of the pond and beyond.

Of course the hope now rests upon the shoulders of the Washington giant. Since the promotion ended, Xbox Live Arcade hasn’t featured as high-profile titles, taking the wind out of its sails almost entirely. Admittedly such decisions need to be well paced, but currently it seems as if we’ll be left in the same situation as we always are. A rush of excellent entries followed by a lull that only a select few are interested in. The potential is definitely there. Fingers crossed it will soon be properly realised…