With the Xbox LIVE Summer Update, released in all territories yesterday, came a number of new additions to the Xbox 360 Dashboard. Along with added touches such as the automatic reconnection to parties when a users gets booted for any reason and the renaming of the Xbox LIVE Community Games channel to Indie Games, a few major additions came in the form of new channels.

            The Avatar Marketplace may seem a little tucked-away at first, but is situated directly in front of users creating new Avatars, which of course is rather shrewd, but also is directly accessible to all those editing their existing Avatars. Clearly, Microsoft have learnt that retail space online as in the real world is at a premium, and not everything needs to be directly in front of the consumer. The addition of the much discussed Games on Demand channel to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace brings with it the option to pay directly by credit card, which leads us smartly onto the meat of today’s observations.

            As a launch line-up, the array of titles available is simply wonderful. Near enough covering all their bases (though it could easily be argued that those available are not the best example of their respective genre available on the Xbox 360), Microsoft have wisely incensed third-parties to offer big names from the last few years, and a small amount of more recent titles that may not have performed quite as well as was hoped. The full list of titles currently available in Europe is as follows:

Assassin’s Creed

Burnout Paradise

Call of Duty 2

EA SPORTS Fight Night Round 3

Kameo: Elements of Power

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga

Mass Effect

Meet the Robinsons

MX vs. ATV: Untamed

Need for Speed: Carbon

Need For Speed: Most Wanted

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Perfect Dark Zero

Prey

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas

Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis

SEGA Rally

Lara Croft; Tomb Raider: Legend

Viva Piñata

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise

            As you can see, everything from First-Person Shooter to Role-Playing Games to Sports titles and Family games, and much more in between, is available right now on the Games on Demand channel for Xbox 360 in Europe. However, it’s not so much the titles that have been chosen that is my cause for complaint, but rather the pricing strategy.

            I would suggest that, in fact there appears to be a total lack of strategy behind Microsoft’s pricing arrangement for the Games on Demand service, though it would be foolish to do so. You and I are both fully aware that this is just the first piece of a new digital distribution puzzle for the console manufacturer, and one that’s very likely to receive a lot of attention from both the media and consumers. It’s the fact that Microsoft have decided to do as Electronic Theatre initially suggested, and that’s release these games at around the same price as their high street retail Recommended Retail Price (RRP).

            Each and every game on the above list can be purchased from the Games on Demand channel for £19.99. As a direct comparison, Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo: Elements of Power were both launch titles for the Xbox 360, now some three and a half years-old, and both are readily available on disc for a much lower cost brand new, let alone pre-owned. Neither Burnout Paradise nor The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion offer their re-released packages (both including more than £10 worth of Downloadable Content) and Electronic Theatre has today witnessed Prey, Lara Croft; Tomb Raider: Legend and Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis available for immediate dispatch for less than £5 on a number of reputable UK videogame retail websites, again as a brand new product.

            The original suggestion was that the Games on Demand service would offer full Xbox 360 titles at similar prices to the high street retail releases, and as Electronic Theatre, perhaps seeming cynical at the time, had suggested, that retail price was in fact the manufacturers suggested price, not equivalent to the prices charged by either major chains or independent retail. It’s for once disheartening to be right.

            Though things will certainly change in the future, with Microsoft undoubtedly using these early days as a testing ground for further plans, at the moment there’s little to suggest that the Games on Demand channel will become a dependable retail outlets to all but those with the most incredibly hectic schedule, or who are most incredibly lazy.

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