The unofficial Xbox Live Arcade sales chart, and other useless facts

by James Ransom-Wiley { Jul 25th 2006 at 1:55PM }

C4Lukins, a member of the NeoGAF forums, has posted the results of his unofficial Xbox Live Arcade survey. C4 figured he could generate a rough estimate of XBLA game sales by recording the number of the last position on each game's leaderboard. To avoid scrolling through tens of thousands of positions on each leaderboard, C4 set out to land the lowest possible score on as many XBLA titles as he had access to. In his own words: "It can actually be quite challenging to suck worse then everyone else..."

While it's nearly impossible to determine if his final numbers* are even close to accurate, C4 has made some other quirky discoveries that are certainly worth a mention:

"Over 20,000 Uno players have not managed to win a single single-player game"
"Somehow people are managing to get a lower score then 200 on Joust, despite the fact that you get 4 lives and 50 points each time you die"
"The worst finishing time on the first level of Marble Blast Ultra is over an hour"

*Hexic HD has the highest count because it comes pre-installed on the Xbox 360 HDD (Premium Bundle).

Tags: Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, XboxLive, XboxLiveArcade

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

DarrenJ @ Jul 25th 2006 2:12PM

Seems like you could get a rough idea of his accuracy by comparing the number of people who play Hexic HD to the number of Xbox360 HD units sold multiplied by the Xbox Live signup percentage, both of which have been published here in the last month.

Houp @ Jul 25th 2006 2:37PM

Do those stats also include people who play trials? That's one thing about arcade and demo's that quirks me is it counts it towards your gamerpoints score even though you haven't played the full game.

pr0cs @ Jul 25th 2006 2:52PM

"That's one thing about arcade and demo's that quirks me is it counts it towards your gamerpoints score even though you haven't played the full game."

Sorry but you're definately mistaken. No free demo or trial give away gamerscore points.

Viridium @ Jul 25th 2006 3:03PM

pr0cs, I think you misunderstand what Houp is saying. I believe what he means is that even by playing a trial/demo Arcade game, your potential Gamerscore total goes up, even though you can't possibly gain any achievements from it.

For example, buy a Premium 360 and hook it up. Give the free Hexic game a try but go nowhere. Your gamerscore? 0 of 200.

Now go grab an arcade demo - say Uno. Give it a try, have some fun. Your gamerscore now? 0 of 400.

Houp @ Jul 25th 2006 3:04PM

Sorry, I missworded that. I know it doesn't give gamerscore points, but it does add to games played. (i.e. I've played the demo of joust, so it added it to my games played). That in turn adds to your total possible gamerscore points (i.e. 3,257 of 9,000) Sorry for the confusion.

J.Goodwin @ Jul 25th 2006 3:06PM

Right, he's not measuring games played though. He's measuring the number of entries that there are for the game on the high score lists.

You can only be ranked on those lists if you're playing the full version of the game.

Robotic House Plant @ Jul 25th 2006 3:09PM

So are the leaderboards the same for all regions?

BubbaLove @ Jul 25th 2006 3:29PM

I always figured that gamerscore 'issue' is a way Microsoft is trying to guilt you into purchasing software that you demo by you seeing what looks like a bad stat. For now (read - until they make it work the way I (and apparently everyone else) wants it to), I just ignore it as meaningless.
Interesting article, in any case.