The Xbox One exclusive Dead Rising 3 proved to be a breath of fresh air in the over-saturated zombie genre when it released as a launch title in 2013. The tongue-in-cheek zombie entry shipped 1 million units within the first month, proving that fans enjoy mowing down armies of the undead and still wanted to have fun during the apocalypse.
That same emphasis on humor and over the top action from Dead Rising 3 is captured in the trailer for the upcoming Crackle original movie, Dead Rising: Watchtower. The ability for the studio to harness the spirit of the Keiji Inafune created series comes from Capcom’s involvement in the production process and keeping Xbox One consoles on set to reference the source material.
Dead Rising is continuing its exclusive partnership with Microsoft by releasing Dead Rising: Watchtower one week early on Xbox Live. Anyone with an Xbox 360 or Xbox One and the Crackle app installed can watch Dead Rising: Watchtower exclusively from March 20 - 26.
For those without access to Xbox Live, Dead Rising: Watchtower will be available starting March 27 through Crackle and other digital platforms, followed by a retail release. Some digital distributors will break the feature length movie into an episodic series, so anyone interested in seeing the film in one sitting would benefit from watching Dead Rising: Watchtower early on Xbox Live.
Microsoft’s partnership with Capcom and Crackle to provide Dead Rising: Watchtower as a timed exclusive, shows a new emphasis on content creation after the publisher cancelled its plans for original programming. The cancellation was a necessary step to recapture consumer goodwill after the Xbox One reveal was heavily criticized for not focusing on games back in 2013.
Though some gamers still remain skeptical about the need for their consoles to double as entertainment centers, Microsoft and Sony are trying to expand the offerings for their platform. Just this past week, the first episode of Powers was free on the PlayStation Network and the entire season will be free for anyone with PS Plus.
The multimedia offerings for the PSN and Xbox Live ecosystem are nice add-ons for consumers, as long as they don’t detract from the game development portion of the console. Dead Rising: Watchtower could make a strong case for investing in Xbox One, but it’s not necessarily a major draw.
Are you excited for the live action interpretation of the Dead Rising universe? Will you watch Dead Rising: Watchtower early on Xbox Live or wait a week?
Source: Major Nelson
