The Xbox 360 wasn’t the first console to offer digital games to players, but it was the first to really embrace the concept and support it long-term. Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360 was a great example of this. Microsoft curated a select number of games that could be sold digitally at relatively cheap prices. These games, like Castle Crashers, Bastion, Trials HD, and Shadow Complex, offered great experiences that didn’t take up much space on the hard drive. And all Xbox Live Arcade games had to offer a demo or trial version for free, too.
Even better, for a few years, Microsoft ran a yearly “Summer of Arcade” promotion where a few select games would be spotlighted. These Summer of Arcade events produced a ton of great titles and got my buddies and me excited to check out smaller games we might have skipped over otherwise. Of all the things we lost from this era, this level of curation might be the biggest and most frustrating loss.
