Microsoft Corp. will announce Monday a new online game service aimed at older players who have its Xbox console.
Xbox Live Arcade will feature relatively simple fare, such as traditional card games, puzzles and trivia quizzes.
Scheduled to launch in the fall, the service will offer games that can be downloaded starting at about $10 apiece. But it will be available only to those who pay $50 a year to subscribe to the Xbox Live online service, which offers gamers the chance to play against one another.
Current Xbox Live customers–of which there were 750,000 as of January–are generally serious gamers. Xbox Live Arcade is aimed at more occasional players, such as parents “whose kid might have an Xbox in the house,” said Greg Canessa, Microsoft’s manager of casual games. “A lot of older people don’t have the time to get involved in a more complex game.”
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Edited by Lara Weber (lweber@tribune.com) and alBerto Trevino (atrevino@tribune.com)
