Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Lumines Live details

Sounds pricey.

Lumines Live will be available in a base version and players will have to pay extra to download new music, and possibly extra again to play versus mode against other people.

That's according to Lumines creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who has been opening up a bit more about the forthcoming Xbox Live Arcade version of the game. Speaking to Game Informer, Mizuguchi said "every mode will have a price".

The base game will be a mixture of old and new music, Mizuguchi says, although the core gameplay will largely the same. Downloadable tracks and videos for new artists, however, which will allow you to customise the experience to your own musical tastes, will cost extra - with associated costs yet to be decided.

Lumines Live was shown off with a Madonna track in tow at E3, and it seems likely that if you want that you will need to pay extra. It also sounds like the way the music industry works will mean a step-by-step rollout for Lumines Live. Asked about the possibility of different artists for different regions, Miziguchi said: "We haven't decided. We're starting this service first in the United States."

Sadly, "it's too difficult" to let you use music you already have on your hard disk, he later said. "In the future that's something that we'd like to implement," he added, which is promising.

Multiplayer, too, could well cost. "We're still trying to determine if we'll package versus in the base package," says Mizuguchi - suggesting the game isn't exactly coming out next week.

There was some good news though in terms of high-def options - with 5.1 surround sound available on certain tracks in addition to high-definition backgrounds to fit the Xbox 360's range of visual options.

For more on Lumines Live, as well as PS2 version Lumines Plus and the other games Mizuguchi's working on, you can find the full interview on GameInformer.

Lumines Live should be out this summer.