During the GDC 2008 conference, Microsoft announced that the XNA development platform powering Xbox Live Indie Games would be extended to their Zune MP3 player. This was the first time that I had the skill, hardware, and timing of a new platform all line up together. I immediately jumped on it, and released the first version of Arcade Classics on ZuneBoards on Aug 16, 2008.

The first release of this project included Solo Pong and Snake. I had planned ahead and the initial launch included the full game list, but the games were disabled in the menu. Over the next few months each new release added additional games. Solo Pong is the same game mechanic that was later released on Android as Solo [Defense] (renamed due to trademark issues with Atari).

By late February I had the final version with Space Invaders and Frogger. This project involved the largest community and had the widest spread of anything I had built to date. To get the feel of Frogger right, the timing specifically, I spent hours watching videos of old Frogger arcade cabinets while holding my Zune next to the screen. I wanted to make sure the game was fun and actually playable instead of just being a visual knockoff.

When Zune games were first announced the only way to actually get a game on your Zune was to install Visual Studio, download XNA, and set up a complete local development environment. As XNA 3.0 was built and released, support was added for *.ccgame files that drastically reduced the complexity to end users. XNA was still required, but it worked as a game manager instead of requiring users to actually compile and deploy the source.

Through the links I managed, I have 6,076 downloads of the final *.ccgame file and 1,834 downloads of the final source. That’s pretty good for a small community and was extremely exciting at the time!

My game was one of, if not the only, complete and finished game. There was a lot of incredible development done, but most projects ended up as proof of concept ideas or tech demos that never matured into finished projects. With the excitement in the community, a ton of 3rd party “Zune Games” sites sprung up, and Arcade Classics was redistributed in various forms all over the internet.

Within a few years the mp3 player race had ended, and everyone moved on to smartphones. Microsoft never released an app store for easier, or wider distribution and the curation responsibilities remained on the community. r/Zune has maintained collections of games and the software required to run all of them, and as of 2019 those records are still active. I am proud to say that Arcade Classics stands alongside the other work.

Check out (an archived copy) of the original thread on Zune Boards.