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Fresh from Famitsu magazine comes details of an XBLA (and PSN) platform to house many of Capcom’s classic arcade titles. The platform is expected to create a home for purchasable …
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Now that the year 2012 has been set firmly in the books, the boys back at the lab have poured over the raw data to bring you the top arcade titles of the year. The figures, based on full versions sold, were tallied from January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012, and made public thanks to Xbox Live’s Larry Hyrb.

No surprise to anyone was Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition topping the list this year. Having launched in May, the massive Minecraft community helped propel the title to well over 5 million downloads by year’s end. More impressively, the arcade adaptation outsold its robust PC cousin by nearly a million copies, securing Xbox Live Arcade as the fastest (legally) growing Minecraft community of 2012.

Trials Evolution rode into the second spot of the year’s most-purchased title on XBLA, and despite the staggering difference between first and second place, did very well for itself. Our Game of the Year, The Walking Dead wrapped up the third spot thanks to critical acclaim and its infectious word-of-mouth campaign. Pinball FX2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive rounded out the top five, in that order.

Amazingly, the never-say-die mantra of Castle Crashers has proven itself again; moving the sixth most number of copies nearly half a decade after its initial release. Filling out the top 10, in order, are: Gotham City Impostors, I Am Alive, Fruit Ninja Kinect, and finally, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD.

You can check out these titles in list form, along with the rest of the top 20, after the jump.

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Much has been made over the last seven years about the high cost of publishing, promoting and patching on Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade platform. Last week, G.Rev president Hiroyuki Maruyama (Strania: The Stellar Machine, Under Defeat HD) shared his own thoughts on the platform.

XBLA?DLC?????????????????????????????????????????????????80?????????????????????????????????????????????

— ???? ???? (@hiro_maruyama) January 18, 2013

“A strong yen and a weak dollar is very damaging to us because XBLA and DLC are ‘export products.’ That’s why Japanese developers avoid making games for Xbox 360. When we released Strania on XBLA, the rate was 80 yen per dollar. (wry smile) If Japanese people buy our game in MSP, we receive in dollars!”

The dollar has strengthened since then, but the yen still has it beat, with the exchange rate currently sitting at 88.62 yen per dollar. Put in Xbox LIVE terms, 1600MSP ($19.99 US) retails at a rate of ¥2,240 ($24.94 when converted). When the percentage of the sales owed to content creators on a 1600 msp game is disbursed, Microsoft calculates based on $19.99 per copy (the US cost of the points), regardless of how much a consumer paid for the 1600MSP that enabled the purchase.

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Some may have noticed a few new entries pop up in the achievement list for Ubisoft’s beat-em-up Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, which may point to the impending release of long-awaited and much-anticipated DLC for the popular title. Four achievements worth a total of 50 gamerscore have been added to the game and appear to be from the “Online Multiplayer and Wallace” pack.

A screenshot of the achievements, courtesy of @lifelower, outlines what you’ll need to do to nab that gamerscore:

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Looking forward to 505 Games‘ upcoming world-building platformer Terraria? If so, you’re in luck, as GameSpot recently unveiled over 17 minutes of …
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Undead Labs’ zombie sandbox survival simulator State of Decay is on track for release early this year. Unfortunately, until the outbreak starts, there’s nothing to do but scavenge for every sustaining morsel of …
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Microsoft Studios announced today that World Series of Poker: Full House Pro will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade in Spring 2013. The game  will offer cross-platform play across XBLA …
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If you can’t wait to get your hands on The Behemoth’s long-awaited platformer Battleblock Theater, now’s your chance to give it a try. Announced today by The Behemoth on …
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Originally reported to be coming in January, Double Fine’s The Cave now has a solid release date. Announced today by publisher Sega, and by creator Ron Gilbert via …
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Hollywood doesn’t like pirates. The movie industry continues to use the full firepower of its impressively financed and outfitted armada to sink skull and crossbones banner-flying sites sailing through the dark waters of the internet; sites which it claimed as recently as January of last year to be responsible for costing the U.S. economy $200–250 billion per year and for killing 750,000 American jobs.

Though the Government Accountability Office has since reported those numbers to be bogus, no one can deny that internet pirates are plundering at least some of the movie business’ potential earnings. That’s why the Motion Picture Association of America was hopeful in November over the prospect of President Obama’s re-election helping it make progress in its war on pirates.

But Portland, Oregon — home to Minecraft: The Story of Mojang documentary maker 2 Player Productions — is most certainly not Hollywood. Still, one approach studio founders Pawl Owens, Paul Levering and Asif Siddiky have taken to promoting their film about original Minecraft creator Mojang is unorthodox to say the least.

They pirated it.

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