Monday, January 11, 2010

Oh and yes I did hear about that Xbox 360 "Game Room"

As big of an arcade fan as I am it's only natural that'd I be excited about the 360's upcoming "Game Room". Unfortunately the launch library isn't much to look at but apparently over a 1,000 games are expected to release over the next three years. Hopefully any or all of these companies throw some support at this service:

Sega - Admittedly I'm not sure how this'll work out since they seem pretty keen on porting arcade titles to XBLA but I figure with this service they'll consider throwing in stuff like Shadow Dancer, maybe some racing games, and hey maybe Golden Axe Revenge of Death Adder. Then again I'm not sure if they'd be willing to de-value the original Golden Axe XBLA since RoDA would be about $2 cheaper and about a hundred times better.

Capcom - Another obvious choice. Again these guys have a couple titles up on XBLA but I think with this service they'd be more willing to put out their shooters and action games. Toss in the few beatemups that aren't tied down by licenses(like Battle Circuit) and it could turn out very nicely.

Konami - Actually these fine folks have already announced a few titles for the service. However one can only hope they consider putting some of their good games out there. It doesn't help that like others they already have a number of titles on XBLA. I gotta say though it would be very nice to have Xexex or...Xexex on the service(It'd have to be the JPN version though cause the US one is pretty bad).

Irem - While their flagship shooter has already seen a port/remake in R-Type Dimensions there's always titles like R-Type Leo, GunForce, In the Hunt, and a few others.

Taito - This is an obvious choice. With Taito/Square Enix's tendency to release remakes/new games on XBLA and similar services I figure Game Room is the perfect place for all of their older arcade titles. Course on that same note it may be difficult to justify buying many of these titles when Taito Legends 1 & 2 can be had for less than $10 total.

Raizing/8ing - This is more wishful thinking on my part since there's hardly any reason for these guys to allow anything to be ported to the service. On the other hand since much of the porting work is handled by a particular team I don't see why anyone would turn down the easy money.

Midway - Are these guys even around anymore? Well if so there's a lot of stuff that could be ported(and yes this is accounting for their games on XBLA).

Cave - More wishful thinking here. Like I said though it's free money and having titles like Dodonpachi, ESP Ra De, and even Dangun Feveron floating around would give some incentive for shooter fans to consider importing their newer games. Then again if anything I believe Cave will go the XBLA route.

SNK/Playmore - Considering that a number of titles have already been put out on the Wii's Virtual Console I figure Game Room support is obvious. There's a big problem with this though as VC NeoGeo games are typically $9. Compare that to $3-5 and well I'm not sure how that'll work out.

Data East - While there is an upcoming compilation on the way it's rather empty(15 to 20 games?) and missing a number of key titles like Midnight Resistance. I expect they'll fill in the blanks somehow through a combination of Virtual Console and Game Room.

Namco/Bandai - These guys are never one to turn down easy money. I fully expect to see every arcade title possible getting a port.

Unfortunately the possibility of any or especially all of these companies doing Game Room support is slight at best. In fact considering many of the titles announced for launch consist of Atari 2600 and Intellivision games I figure that a large number of future releases are going to be in the same vein. Still though with over 1,000 games I figure at least a few great ones are going to make their way over.

No comments:

Post a Comment