2008 was a good year for Xbox LIVE Arcade. No longer just peddling crappy ancient ports, the service really hit its stride, delivering some of the best/most interesting games of the year. So, to celebrate their success, the people over at Gamerscore blog have released a whole buncha chest-beating XBLA stats for us. Here they are:

• Gamers have unlocked more than 100 million Achievements and almost 1.25 billion Gamerscore in Xbox LIVE Arcade titles to date.
• More than 60 games released on Xbox LIVE received metacritic rating of over 75.
• Braid became the number 1 rated XBLA game ever, winning plaudits from a ton of critics and even matching the likes of Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3 in terms of metacritic rating.
• There are now more than 1m leader board entries for Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 1 & 2 combined (and I’m probably bottom of them all).
• 110 million trial games have been downloaded on XBLA to date.
• The ‘Summer of Arcade’ – which saw the release of Castle Crashers, Braid, Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Galaga Legions - broke XBLA’s record monthly takings by 67 percent.

The blog also reveals the games that will hit XBLA in the first quarter of 2009. Lode Runner, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, South Park, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix and R-Type Dimensions will all be making virtual dents in our virtual wallets in the new year.