First Download-Only Game Announced for Xbox 360
Will next-gen consoles answer prayers of indie developers?
The first download only title for the forthcoming Xbox 360 console has been announced. Marble Blast Ultra is made by indie developers GarageGames and will become available sometime around the worldwide launch of the console towards the end of the year.
Marble Blast Ultra is the latest in GarageGames Marble Blast series. The games are similar to the Marble Madness/Super Monkey Ball genre of ball-rolling skill games. Players navigate moving platforms and hazards while collecting power-ups, and a multiplayer mode adds an extra dimension allowing you to knock your rivals off the level.
Downloadable games are nothing new to PC owners – Half Life 2 can be purchased direct from Valve using its Steam service, but with the community of online console gamers growing all the time, the expansion of the market for downloadable games for your console is inevitable. Much has been made of the Nintendo Revolution’s downloadable games model, which Nintendo says will allow small developers to sell their games direct to consumers without the hard and often compromising struggle to find a publisher that currently characterises console development. But Microsoft is already offering precisely this service via their Xbox Live Arcade platform, with GarageGames releasing Orbz only last month. It’s good to see the developer wasting no time in getting games out on the new console, and hopefully other indie development houses will follow suit.
Of course, it looks like you’ll need to buy the more expensive version of the Xbox 360 - the one with a hard drive - if you want to play such games, although GarageGames say the game is so small that it could fit on a Memory Card. The next generation of consoles is seen by most as a catalyst for ever bigger and more beautiful videogames. It’s good to see that at least two of the three forthcoming consoles may drive an explosion of fun games that are cheap to develop and buy.
Marble Blast Ultra is the latest in GarageGames Marble Blast series. The games are similar to the Marble Madness/Super Monkey Ball genre of ball-rolling skill games. Players navigate moving platforms and hazards while collecting power-ups, and a multiplayer mode adds an extra dimension allowing you to knock your rivals off the level.
Downloadable games are nothing new to PC owners – Half Life 2 can be purchased direct from Valve using its Steam service, but with the community of online console gamers growing all the time, the expansion of the market for downloadable games for your console is inevitable. Much has been made of the Nintendo Revolution’s downloadable games model, which Nintendo says will allow small developers to sell their games direct to consumers without the hard and often compromising struggle to find a publisher that currently characterises console development. But Microsoft is already offering precisely this service via their Xbox Live Arcade platform, with GarageGames releasing Orbz only last month. It’s good to see the developer wasting no time in getting games out on the new console, and hopefully other indie development houses will follow suit.
Of course, it looks like you’ll need to buy the more expensive version of the Xbox 360 - the one with a hard drive - if you want to play such games, although GarageGames say the game is so small that it could fit on a Memory Card. The next generation of consoles is seen by most as a catalyst for ever bigger and more beautiful videogames. It’s good to see that at least two of the three forthcoming consoles may drive an explosion of fun games that are cheap to develop and buy.
Companies:
Microsoft
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