To honor and recognize the many talented developers behind the booming Xbox Live Arcade library, Microsoft has announced plans for the first-ever Xbox Live Arcade Awards. Six categories are open to fan voting — Best Cooperative Multiplayer Game, Best Competitive Multiplayer Game, Best Original Game, Best Classic Game, Best Family Friendly Game and Best Overall Arcade Game — with the polls supposedly opening on Tuesday, January 22 at 2:00 a.m. PST and running through Wednesday, January 30 at 11:59 p.m. PST. The voting page is already up at www.xbox.com/xblaawards, though, and I already went through and cast my votes, so they may have jumped the gun on that start date. I’m kinda surprised some favorites like Switchball and Super Puzzle Fighter II didn’t any or more nominations than they did (both should be up for Best Overall Arcade Game if you ask me), but thankfully write-in votes are accepted.
In addition to the fan-voted categories, four other award categories will be recognized as well, including Best Selling Game, Most Played Game, Highest Rated Game and Staff Choice. All winners of the inaugural Xbox Live Arcade Awards – 2007 will be announced at this year’s Game Developer Conference coming up in February.
Matt Litten is the full-time editor and owner of VGBlogger.com. He is responsible for maintaining the day to day operation of the site, editing all staff content before it is published, and contributing regular news, reviews, previews and other articles.
Matt landed his first gig in the video game review business writing for the now-defunct website BonusStage.com. After the sad and untimely close of BonusStage, the former staff went on to found VGBlogger.com. After a short stint as US Site Manager for AceGamez, Matt assumed full ownership over VGBlogger, and to this day he is dedicated to making it one of the top video game blogs in all the blogosphere.
Matt is a fair-minded reviewer and lover of games of all platforms and types, big or small, hyped or niche, big-budget or indie. But that doesn't mean he will let poor games slide without a good thrashing when necessary! 
