Xbox Live Game Room

I have to say that when I heard about Xbox Live’s Game Room announcement I was pleasantly surprised. It seems like a great addition to a platform that doesn’t offer much social interaction beyond playing multi-player games, at least in the way Playstation Home does. I know, I know, Home is a bit of a bomb. It may not have lived up to its promise, but it’s got a lot of room to grow if Sony can just figure out what to do with it.

I had thought that when Xbox Live rolled out avatars with the upgrade to Live that there would be more of a social component, or at least someway to interact with your friends in some lobby environment. I’m not sure if that’s going to be a component of Game Room either. Wouldn’t it be great if you could open up your game room to a bunch of your friends and all hang out like you used to in the arcades of old? Remember sitting around some kid that was just wailing on Defender? The dazzle of the blinking lights and cacophony of blips, bells and whistles all mixed together with the scent of popcorn, Coca Cola and odor of cigarettes burning the plastic of the game cabinet’s button shelf.



I can almost smell the burning plastic from here

Kids today are missing out on all of that. If I close my eyes and thick hard enough, I’m back at the roller skating rink, jamming quarter after quarter into Dig-Dug, the air think with the smell of cotton candy and music blasting in my ears (I’d like to say it was KISS, Thin Lizzy or something respectable like that, but it’s more likely to be ABBA or Wild Cherry…ugh). Imagine being able to recapture that? After buying the games to put in your game room, you could open it up to your friends and let them go wild! I’m sure Microsoft would prefer that people buy their own games and then play them in their own game rooms, but I think they are missing a great opportunity to bring some real social aspect to Xbox Live. The people playing the games would use a few Microsoft points, with the owner of the game room getting bonuses; say a new game for every 500-1000 points spent in his arcade, new levels and attractions, free music downloads for an arcade jukebox or movies to be played in a mini-theater. High scores could be posted on leader-boards across Xbox Live or there could be carnival games that award special achievements for those who win. The owner could allow Microsoft to sell ad space in their game room and again reward the owner of the arcade to gain a bonus for the amount of traffic their game room generates.

If they’re smart, Microsoft will pick up on the opportunity to make a little bit of money while offering something really exciting to its subscribers.