Real Talk By: KJ

The Season is officially over, but what happened to the festivities? Summer Slumps are nothing new, but Microsoft had somewhat of an answer to it with their line of premium Arcade games. This event introduced us to some modern classics. Titles such as Castle Crashers, Shadow Complex, and LIMBO just to name a few. Sony was even inspired by this event to release: ‘PLAY’, a similar business structure filed with their own high-end downloadable titles. It could be that the focus is centered around Xbox One. Maybe Games weren’t ready for this year. How about the Xbox 360, there must have been some worthy titles in that lineup. I guess it’s a case of not enough quality downloadable titles on Xbox 360 or Xbox to justify the promotion.

Ori and the Blind Forest is coming in the fall. This has been highly praised. We were also treated to a nice indie game video montage at Gamescom. Still, many of those titles are missing release dates.

Perhaps the Ultimate reason for SOA’s discontinuation would be the company’s new policy. The Xbox Live Arcade Name doesn’t exist on XO. These lower priced titles are simply known as: Games. Not Arcade. Not Minis. Just because the name dropped, shouldn’t mean we miss out on a good time.

Summer of Arcade/PLAY are two events I have looked forward to every year. There has rarely been a bad game in the bunch, and the deals attached were great. Out of all the things to cancel, Microsoft picked the wrong one. At least Sony kept it going this year. Bring it back MS! Call it the ‘Summer of 2015’. See Look, that wasn’t very hard.

#SummerofArcade @PlayLegit