Rubicon Development, the creators of the XBLA title Novadrome, announced that they would be bringing two new titles to the Arcade, Shotest Shogi & Basement Pool. Though XBLA already has a billiards game, Basement Pool thinks it can offer the Arcade something new, with the main selling points being the variety of tables, and the physics and graphics. The game will only ship with 5 game modes however, and Bankshot Billiards 2 is already on the Marketplace, and it has 9 modes. The Basement Pool website promises that we'll more game modes as DLC, but is that DLC likely to free? Doubtful. If the game can hit at the same price as Bankshot, with camera support (which is unknown at the time) then it has a chance. But otherwise, it seems as though it's being sent to die.
Shotest Shogi on the other hand seems to have a good chance. Shogi as a game is as old as the hills, and is more popular in Japan than chess is in the west. As a chess variant, Shogi is actually a bit more complex than chess, and with a digital form of the game coming to XBLA, complete with tutorial, this could bring one of the oldest and greatest strategy games ever to an entirely new audience. Hey, we'll definitely be buying it.
