360 gaming blog.

You may have noticed that we are currently in the quietest part of the gaming calendar; it's sort of the gaming off season.

There is always something going on that is gaming related but all we are really getting at the moment is drip fed information about the forthcoming AAA titles that will be keeping us all indoors this winter.

For me it's a bit frustrating, knowing roughly what I will be playing at the end of the year but not being able to make those games arrive any faster.

I'm not an expert on game developing or business for that matter but I’m surprised that more companies aren't willing to release their games in the quietest part of the year. Maybe they feel we will all be out in the sunshine, I suppose that's the downside of living in the UK where we don't get a proper summer; there is nothing to do.

The fear of Call of Duty was a big factor in many developers delaying their games towards the end of last year meaning we had a lot of early/spring releases this year but the summer months are still pretty barren.

Microsoft have jazzed up the Summer with their Summer of Arcade and this has been successful in that it has help promote the many exciting games on the Xbox Live Arcade but often the short games are just a small distraction, making me forget just for a while what I really want to play right now.

Rocksteady were the first to take the dip last year with Batman Arkham Asylum, cited by many as GOTY 2009 and that was a summer release so that should be as good an incentive as any for companies to get their game out early.

It would probably make it a lot more convenient for a vast majority of gamers who simply can't afford to splash out on several games in such a short period, just in October I can think of at least 5 games that I really want to play and I know I won't be able to play them all.

So September the 14th. Halo: Reach. That's when the gaming season kicks off proper. Right from there it's going to be an intense few months and I can't wait.

Arctic Hydra 87