ComputerAndVideogames.com recently had the opportunity to speak with Sarah and Martyn Chudley, the married couple that is the head of Bizarre Creations. First, they talked about their Project Gotham Racing 3, where they mentioned a bunch of interesting things.

For the development of PGR3, the studio was able to borrow a couple of great sports cars "for research", one of them a Noble M14 that got delivered to their door! They also talked about working on downloadable contents for the game. They say, "[We] have people who have been working specifically on DLC for PGR3, but that was planned beforehand, so it's not affecting any other development really. And obviously Xbox Live is what makes games even better value for money for us as gamers too!"

In regard to their smash-hit Geometry Wars, the Chudleys indicated that they really didn't expect the success. The fans might consider Stephen Cakebread, designer of the game, a god, yet in the office his situation hasn't changed. Cakebread might have gotten a slightly bigger paycheck - not that the Chudleys said it directly, but they did drop some hints about Cakebread's current financial status. To quote, "...he can probably afford Tesco Finest sandwiches rather than the normal ones now!"

And then there is The Club, Bizarre's mysterious new third-person shooter that will be published by Sega for next-generation consoles. The interviewer wasn't able to squeeze too much out of Sarah and Martyn - Bizarre is "trying to bring something new and exciting to the genre", they said, "in the same sort of way that the whole idea of Kudos has done for the racing genre". The game's story revolves around a secret underground organisation that is sponsored by crime syndicates. In blood sports matches reminiscent of Gladiator fights, players must survive and kill according to the rules of the game.

For the full interview, hit "Read" below.

A gamer known as C4Lukins has compiled a list of Xbox Live Arcade sales stats. Because Microsoft does not release any official numbers, he decided the best way to look at Live Arcade sales is to go to the leader boards and see the last name on the list and their ranking. Pretty much the only way to do this is to try and get the lowest score on each game so that you do not have to scroll through tens of thousands of people to see the bottom one with only one chance to really try per account.

Some of the crazy things that were discovered from the research is that over 20,000 Uno players have not managed to win a single single player game. Somehow people are managing to get a lower score then 200 on Joust, despite the fact that they get 4 lives, and 50 points each time they die. The worst finishing time on the first level of Marble Blast Ultra, is over an hour. Over 40 people purchased Geometry wars between 1am and 2am Central time while he was compiling this list. Cloning Clyde sold 8500 copies on its first day, and 5410 on its second day.

Is this accurate? Probably not. It should be pretty close. Some people have multiple accounts on a single 360 which will fudge up the numbers, and some people have bought these games and for one reason or another not posted a score on the leader boards. This is probably as close as we can get without Microsoft making any sort of announcement.Remember games with a question mark after them are games I do not own, and need numbers for.

Astropop- 21,321
Bankshot Billiards- 35,136 ???
Bejeweled 2- 50,994 ???
Cloning Clyde- 14,063
Crystal Quest- 29,557
Feeding Frenzy- 50,229
Frogger- 43,416 ???
Gauntlet- 77,394 ???
Geometry Wars- 188,428
Hexic HD- 566,230
Jewel Quest- 18,091 ???
Joust- 45,010
Marble Blast Ultra- 107,886
Mutant Storm Reloaded- 38,726
Outpost Kaloki X- 23,732 ???
Robotron 2084- 22,887
Smash TV- 78,790
Uno- 143,223
Wik Fable of Souls- 15,591
Zuma- 70,264

If you want to pitch a game for the Xbox 360 Live Arcade, you better get in line.

Next-gen.biz reports that Microsoft says it's being overwhelmed by new game pitches for Xbox Live Arcade. When Microsoft requested applications for Xbox Live Arcade game proposals, they had no idea of the tidal wave of interest they'd receive.

At the Develop Conference today in Brighton, England, Microsoft's Jeff Sullivan said, "We're saturated."

According to stats from the conference, 65 percent of Xbox Live users have downloaded an Xbox Live Arcade game, with downloads now at 5 million. The conversion rate is around 20 percent (from trying a demo to actually making a purchase). And that's impressive, compared with less than 2 percent conversion in the PC market.
   
The top games are now Geometry Wars, Uno, Marble Blast Ultra, Gauntlet and Zuma.

Sullivan offered some hints for those folks hoping to get their games onto Xbox Live Arcade. He said to try for: 

• Gameplay that is immediately obvious to the player.
• Multiplayer options that include co-op play.
  
• A worldwide appeal - not just North America.
• Appealing graphics.
• Downloadable content options.
• Tie-ins with orther products or games.

Mutant Storm Reloaded was one of the Xbox Live Arcade's premier launch titles, but unfortunately it was eclipsed by the ever-popular Geometry Wars. While we didn't hear a whole lot about the original, apparently it sold well enough to convince the developers at Pom Pom to create a sequel. The original game used vibrant colors, creative level designs, and a vast variety of enemies to always add a new challenge, and it looks like Mutant Storm Empire could even be better than the original. For now take a look at these screens, and hopefully we'll hear more about this XBLA title in the near future.

A little over a week ago we mentioned that Xbox Live Arcade titles were possibly going to be getting a retail package and it looks as though it is coming out before the end of the year as Gamespot has posted some information along with the cover art for the upcoming compilation disc of sorts.

A tagline proclaims that the package "includes the hit game Geometry Wars and a one-month subscription to Xbox Live Gold." A number of screenshots on the cover indicate that the compilation also includes Bejeweled 2 Deluxe, Wik: Fable of Souls, Hardwood Backgammon, Outpost Kaloki X, and the as-yet unreleased Texas Hold 'Em Poker.

This is great news for people who have a 360 and either don't have the option to connect to Xbox Live or just like having a actual copy of the game that they are playing. Gamespot also notes that the list of games could always change as the cover art isn't the final version. When more news becomes available we'll be sure to keep you informed.

Ever wondered why Microsoft is so slow when it comes to adding some fresh Arcade content to Xbox Live? Of course there are some good titles but we want more, right? Lovely arcade games are scheduled for release but we don't know how long we have to wait! Well, Mr. Moore told Edge Magazine the following reason for that:

"Here's what happened - people didn't believe that Arcade was going to fly. So we went round a year and a half ago as we were doing the final plans for launching 360, and told our publishing friends that here's what we think is really cool idea, where you could make games for hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of tens of millions, and at very low risk, but people didn't believe it. And we released it and it blew the doors down. Now all of a sudden we're in this phase where Sega, Namco, Konami, Midway... they want some of that. But we do have an important quality bar in place - we could probably throw 300 games up there quickly, and we are trying to get the independent guys going as well. It's almost going to be like Pop Idol, where someone will pop out suddenly - Geometry Wars is a great example."

He's actually saying they need to convince more developers to make games. But if you "could probably throw 300 games up there", why not do it? And is bringing these games to retail stores going to help? We want answers! With the recent additions of UNO, Jewel Quest and Marble Quest Ultra keeping the crowd fed for a while, maybe Microsoft should really accept more third-party submissions.

According to Next-Generation, Microsoft is planning to bring the success of Xbox Live Arcade to retail. Xbox chief Peter Moore is pushing to extend the Live Arcade brands to stores, arguing internally that original games like Geometry Wars, retro hits like Smash TV and casual games like Hardwood Hearts will extend Xbox 360's appeal to non-hardcore audiences.The company is seeking to offer the games to the 'other 50%' of gamers that have not signed up to Xbox Live, while using the titles to showcase the platform as a welcoming destination.

Moore recently told industry sources that a retail SKU is being planned. Whether this will  take the form of low-priced series of individual titles or, more likely, a compilation of some sort is yet to be determined. Microsoft today said it was not ready to discuss the plan, so issues such as pricing, packaging, and timing are unknown. But this is good news for people that like to have a tangible version of their console games. When more news becomes available we'll be sure to keep you informed.