Microsoft had a good year on Xbox Live Arcade and the digital distribution platform for the Xbox 360 featured some of the hottest games of the year. With titles like Braid, Castle Crashers, and Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2, Microsoft was able to celebrate much good fortune for its digital distribution platform.

Microsoft did a lot to help build the profile of Xbox Live Arcade titles during its Summer of Arcade promotion which saw the release of a number of high profile titles during the five weeks that the promotion ran, which led to much higher than average sales. With the success of the Summer of Arcade promotion, we suspect that Microsoft will have something like this planned for 2009, as well.

2009 is already shaping up to be another successful year on Xbox Live Arcade with the news that new titles are in the pipeline to be released this year, including: Lode Runner, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, South Park, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, and R-Type Dimensions. These titles will be some of the first out of the gate in 2009, but no specific release information is available yet.

In addition to the titles on Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft’s Community Game releases that have been developed by independent developers also seem to be gaining traction, as well. Many of the community released titles have also been gaining momentum.

Microsoft continues to see much profit from the Xbox Live Arcade titles and our sources tell us that they will continue to push for additional releases in 2009 and the sales numbers are expected to continue to grow.