WOW! Great sales. Almost 15 games cracked a million. Downloadable games are becoming better and better.

The December update is here but with it comes sad news.
The writer is axing this feature as he is not being paid anymore by Gamasutra.

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/RyanLangley/20130117/184959/Xbox_Live_Arcade_Sales_Analysis_December_2012.php

"I've tried contacting numerous blogs -- Polygon, Kotaku and IGN to name a few, but either I didn't get a response at all after numerous tries or they weren't interested. But hey! If you're a site who wants me to continue, make it worth while for me, I'm open!"

Since this is likely to be the last update we get, we should appreciate his work and enjoy the numbers:




Notes:
Fez did incredibly well during the sale and should make it into the list in 2013.
Furthermore Rock Band Blitz and Sonic Adventure 2 should be included soon.
For other December highlights, look at the posts above

Been looking through some 4J Studios tweets and found out that Banjo Kazooie sold 16k units between January and May 2012. Now at 310k.
Banjo Tooie at ~160k as of May 2012.

5) What's the total number of people on Banjo Kazooie XBLA Mumbo's Mountain leaderboard at the moment?

— 4J Studios (@4JStudios) 8. Mai 2012

Congrats @limeylicious - it's 309,721

— 4J Studios (@4JStudios) 8. Mai 2012

FADE LLC update for 2012:
http://fadellc.com/category/press/

"As per the Research & Analysis division of analyst firm Forecasting & Analyzing Digital Entertainment, LLC (FADE), Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade market has set a record for annual revenues at $290 million USD, doubling last year’s revenue.
Evolution and Dead Do Well

Although Minecraft can easily claim all accolades for its 2012 performance, other titles still saw great success in the year. Trials Evolution secured a notable 2nd-place finish, selling just over 1 million units and an estimated $14.3 million USD. Adventure game series The Walking Dead sold (and gave away) an estimated 2.6 million units, or $10.3 million USD in revenues. From there, the top ten drops precipitously, with no other title coming close to the $10 million barrier.

FADE is a strategic market research and consulting firm focused on electronic entertainment. With very little information currently available in these markets, FADE allows smaller developers to investigate these new potential sources of revenue and make informed business decisions moving forward. FADE produces reports for downloadable markets via consoles, PC, and mobiles, as well as downloadable content for retail titles for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.


____________________________________________________________________

Since the leaderboard numbers and sales are fairly close, I'm not going to change any of them (except The Walking Dead and Alan Wake on which we had only limited data prior to this report). I might change this in the future though, since we probably don't get leaderboard updates from Gamasutra.

Minecraft thus made 1/3 of the whole XBLA revenue for 2012.
Since no game costs more than $20 we can conclude that at least 14.5m arcade games have been sold this year. Realistically the number should be above 20m with ease.

Huge Update from fellow (ex?)Gamasutra writer Ryan Langley.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RyanLangley/20130211/186346/Xbox_Live_Arcade_By_The_Numbers__An_extensive_look_back_at_2012.php

Seriously the charts alone would be too big, so I don't even bother embedding them here.




Possible newcomers for 2013:

Banjo Tooie - 29k in 2012 - 181k LTD
Beyond Good & Evil HD - 37k in 2012 - 162k LTD
Blacklight Tango Down - 34k in 2012 - 193k LTD
Crimson Alliance - 47k in 2012 - 164k LTD
DOOM II - 51k in 2012 - 160k LTD
Fez - 169k in 2012 - 169k LTD
ilomilo - 32k in 2012 - 192k LTD
Magic the Gathering 2013 - 195k in 2012 - 195k LTD
Monkey Island SE - 13k in 2012 - 195k LTD
Rock Band Blitz - 172k in 2012 - 172k LTD
Snoopy Flying Ace - 62k in 2012 - 185k LTD
Streets of Rage 2 - 8k in 2012 - 193k LTD
Iron Brigade/Trenched - 37k in 2012 - 157k LTD

41 games 500k and up. Amazing

Glad to see XBLA still doing great!

Kinda dissapointing to see relative low numbers for Limbo and BG&E: HD though, both deserve to have sold 2M+, they are absolutele gems.

I read it on neogaf ^^'

People always suspect bigger sales.

Honestly I knew it would not that be great but that is because I am getting used to IOS sales... Even Joe danger manage to get +200k sales on IOS lately..

THIS.

Some still don't understand that last gen consoles aren't equal to digital only Android/iOS phones or Steam dominated PCs. Adding to that the userbase is much lower as well.

About Joe Danger, I'm sure this would've done better on XBLA and PSN for $3 too :P
Just look at Dead Rising Case Zero. People bought it in droves because it was only $5. At least 100k on XBLA would've been more than realistic IMO if JD2 was priced at $3 and this would've made them more money than 18k sales at $15.

For some reason i dont think ive tagged this yet. Thanks Barozi for doing this XD