While the majority of XBLA games are still in the 800-point-and-under bracket, XBLA's Portfolio Director Chris Charla admits that the number of over-1,200-point titles in the service's library has been steadily increasing. During an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Charla said that XBLA's pricing trends are "a little bit of the opposite" of what one might normally see in an app-store ecosystem, where historically pricing structures have entered "a race to zero as fast as possible." So far, 2011 has seen 20 1,200-plus games land on XBLA. In 2010, 27 of the 85 games released for service cost 1,200 points or more, an 8 percent increase over 2009, during which 21 out of 86 titles hit that price point. Charla attributes the gradual pricing increase to an increase in the number of quality titles on the platform: "I think the games that we're shipping -- a Limbo or a Castle Crashers -- are as good as anything on the market." He went on to say that while it's "really gratifying" to know that gamers are willing to pay a "premium" for digital content, it is the market that decides what direction prices will go.
I think a lot of arcade games on the 360 have lost there way to be honest, arcade games are trying too much to be like full retail games. Most games do this end up failing at been a good arcade game and the quality is just not there to make it as good as a retail game. The price has gone up and the quality has gone down if you ask me, In the past we have had loads of good, original arcade games. Such as Marble Blast Ultra, Heavy Weapon, Geometry Wars, Castle Crasher, Raskulls and so on. Games like this would not have sold as retail games but are great pick up and play arcade games. I generally think most of the games released on the arcade are trash these days, or have been priced way too high for what they are.
talking about arcade games just look at indie marketplace they all get next to no sales apart from the new minecraft clones
This has easily been noticeable. The same things with CoD charging 1200MSP for a map pack. Maybe it's just me but I refuse to pay 1/4 of a games retail price for 5 multiplayer maps. As soon as Castlecrashers came out is when more arcade games started charging 1200MSP for arcade games as I believe CC was one of the first to start charging that much. .
There are plenty of things getting expensive with XBL, and it isn't "slow." We have developers, including EA (notorious for shutting down servers), who are requiring "online passes" for their games. Then there are games where you pay to unlock content that is already on the disc. And Live has even increased in price by $10. Why? To add more things to pay for (ex. Hulu). I remember one company wanting to release their app on XBL, but Microsoft wouldn't let them without charging. I'll admit that out of the big three of gaming, the 360 is my favorite, but Microsoft is tied with Nintendo in terms of greediness (with it's last gen console with this gen price, ton of worthless peripherals, gimmicks galore, and rediculous Wii Shop prices).