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Paid-for Xbox Live games and content are enjoying good growth” in the UK year-on-year, says Microsoft.
In an interview with MCV, Xbox Live’s UK product manager Pav Bhardwaj said this includes Arcade releases, Games on Demand titles and extra add-on content.
We don’t have any particular numbers as such, but we’ve seen good growth with the arcade titles, and the game add-on business is in growth as well,” he told MCV.
We’re really pleased with how it’s going. We’re bringing new titles out constantly. We brought out a number of titles a few weeks ago, and now we have Trials Evolution, Minecraft, Bloodforge and Fable Heroes. It’s a new set of amazing IP and some amazing games.”
Sales of Microsoft’s Games on Demand titles, which become available to download online around six months after their retail debut, are also up year-on-year. These are fully priced at around 49.99 each.
It really is a successful part of our business, we’re very pleased with the growth of Games on Demand and it continues to do really well,” added Bhardwaj. People are buying the games at full price and downloading them all too.
Both sides of Microsoft Studios – retail and the Xbox Live marketplace – have been growing year-on-year.”
Microsoft is currently pushing its Arcade Next promotion which consists of four games: Trials Evolution, Fable Heroes, Bloodforge and Minecraft.
While we wouldn’t talk about specific sales targets, we’re really excited to launch such a strong line-up of titles as part of the Arcade Next promotion,” said Bhardwaj. With highly recognised IP in Trials, Fable and Minecraft, and a heart-pounding combat experience in Bloodforge, we have high hopes for these titles.
Specifically, we’ve got big hopes for Minecraft on the Xbox. It does look incredible, it has split-screen multiplayer and is very very true to the PC experience. And then we’re bringing Kinect functionality as well in the future.”
