Game Room Service Falters Before it Can Begin

[Austin MacKenzie]

Game Room Service Falters Before it Can Begin

Microsoft's attempt to bring classic retro arcade games to the Xbox 360 has stumbled out of the gate and shows no immediate sign of getting back on its feet.

Microsoft's Game Room was originally intended to house over 1,000 retro games within the first three years, with regular updates beginning in late April. Unfortunately this was not to be, Game Room's developer Krome Studios saw a number of layoffs that brought its update cycle to a screeching halt before it could even begin.

"The latest batch of Game Room content has also been delayed until further notice - I'll let you know once a new date is confirmed," Xbox Live editor for EMEA Daniel Maher said.

Game Room launched with a number of classic titles like Centipede, Astroids Deluxe, and Tempest, and was expected to pick up Super Breakout, Pitfall, Megamania, Nightstalker, Rack 'em Up, Real Sports Volleyball, and Basketball before the release was delayed. With Krome's faltering performance, it may be some time before Game Room can start adding to its library.

Source: <a href=http://www.edge-online.com/news/microsoft-delays-game-room-titles>Edge Online


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[Jared]

Well, how come I am not surprised...well. It was a good idea, but, unfortunatly no fruit seems to be born

 

[Aptspire]

I just started the damn thing
(2,50$-5,00$ is still way too pricey for retros, when you can get a knock-off from the Net for free, Microsoft)

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Its wasn't even a good idea to begin with. First off, it costs too much money to buy these games. And even if they were free, most Atari era games have not aged well.

 

[pntaylor]

Meh I wasn't interested in it when it was announced, I've not touched it since it launched and wouldn't care a jot if it disappeared.

 

[Quad08]

Sounds allot like the Microsoft version of Home

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Meh, saw it coming. Noone will pay that much for retro games that you can find on the internet legally and free.

 

[Delusibeta]

Although I approve of Microsoft giving the PC access to one of their Xbox Live initiatives, I can't help but feel this is one of those initiatives in which you wonder why they bothered.

 

[Therumancer]

I think the idea was a bad one from the start. I don't see the appeal of a shared virtual space/graphic chat unless you can walk around in it. What's more, the entire idea here seems to be to get people to pay $3 or so at a pop for games that are more or less public domain (even if not legally) and have been for a long time you can find free versions of pretty much everything on the list.

Now, to be entirely honest I can see the appeal of buying later generation games like the recently release "Final Fight/Magic Sword" combo. Fill up an Arcade with games like that and sell them for $3 apiece and they might be onto something (I mean heck, me and many others paid $10... or $5 each for the Final Fight bundle). To me the entire idea seemed liked a giant rip off both in terms of the games themselves, and in the creation of a virtual space to begin with.

I will go so far as to say that at least Playstation Home for all of it's failures allows people to walk around, being pretty much a free graphical chat mode (which is a lot less than many people had hoped it would be)... The Arcade seems to be nothing but a way to spend money and show people how much money you've spent. As I understand things you can't even use it as a way to meet new people, since it's invitational.

I kind of think that this whole idea was spawned out of a "how can we squeeze money out of people" brainstorming session, with some of the finer details of why people would invest in something like this being glossed over.


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Oh and hey, if anyone working for big game companies are reading this:

If your looking to exploit the games of the past, and see people spend money on them, look towards ones that are somewhat harder to get. The "Dreamcast" had a number of very decent titles which have more or less been gathering dust, and while I haven't followed it recently I believe they have also been very unfriendly to attempts at emulation in many cases. This means that they aren't going to be over-distributed and cloned.

You'd probably do better to pick up THOSE liscences, than hoping to cash in on nostolgia for games that have been readily availible for decades... I mean crud, companies with names like "Keypunch Software" were selling discs full of clones of those titles for a song for many, many years on top of everything else.



Just a thought.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Meh, saw it coming. Noone will pay that much for retro games that you can find on the internet legally and free.

This.

What were they thinking honestly? Who pays for that kind of stuff?

The only reason I bought Galaga on XBLA was because its one of my favourite games. I'm hardly going to do it with a dozen or more arcade games that I can play on any free flash site.

 

[SaintWaldo]

I personally experience an IMMENSE wave of nostalgia when I think of a low ceiling, dim lit cavern bulging with lights and that peculiar mix of sounds when you place Galaga next to Centipede next to Bagger next to Tempest next to etc and let the attract screens just go, man, go. Throw in a slight whiff of sweat, popcorn, and candy, and I think you can pretty much bottle my pre-to-mid teen years.

I don't think there are many of me around. I certainly doubt there's enough to make this project viable when MAME exists.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Game wha? Oh right! Micropayments: The Game. Yeah that was doomed to fail anyway.

 

[Andronicus]

I didn't know Krome was developing this. That's an Australian-based studio. I sure hope they're alright, even if their Spyro reboot was crap...

 

[laserwulf]

Release a niche product with a lousy selection of starting content, overcharge for it, and then wonder why you aren't making enough money to maintain staff? Preposterous!!!

I realize MS is the gatekeeper for things like pricing, but I can't help wondering if there would still have been layoffs if the initial games had less garbage (and therefore not bombed). I want to hear the taunting of Sinistar in remastered 5.1 Surround Sound, dagnabit!

 

[Digikid]

In all honesty, I tried this and you have to pay for EVERY sincle thing you get. Not even a free unlock, though I can appreciate some achievements. But still, screw Game Room, failed for me.

Ditto that for me as well.

It just plain SUCKED!!!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I don't think there are many of me around. I certainly doubt there's enough to make this project viable when MAME exists.

Given your Metagalatic Llama, I was expecting some mention of MAME.

Anyway, let's see how that should have been done.

http://www.powerstrike.net/Tehkan/mamejump.html