As a way to recognize the teams of talented developers who have together created over 112 games for Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft will announce awards for the top XBLA games of 2007 later this year, with several award categories decided by the community. Fans of Xbox Live Arcade are invited to cast their votes for the first-ever Xbox Live Arcade Awards — 2007 by voting at http://www.xbox.com/xblaawards. Voting begins Tuesday, January 22 at 2:00 a.m. PST (10:00 GMT) and runs through Wednesday, January 30 at 11:59 p.m. PST (07:59 GMT).

The finalists in each award category were selected by a panel of consumer and video game industry journalists, and the winners will be determined by popular vote. Microsoft will announce the winners of the inaugural Xbox Live Arcade Awards — 2007 at the Game Developer Conference in February.

Below is the list of award categories that will be open for public voting:

• Best Overall Arcade Game
• Best Classic Game
• Best Original Game
• Best Family Friendly Game
• Best Competitive Multiplayer Game
• Best Cooperative Multiplayer Game

Other award categories include the following:

• Best selling game
• Most played game
• Highest rated game
• Staff choice