Next-Gen recently interviewed general manager of Xbox LIVE Marc Whitten regarding the future of the service, and man oh man did he have a lot of juicy details to spill.
First off, Xbox LIVE Arcade games that are at least six months old, have a Metacritic score lower than 65%, and have a conversion rate lower than 6% will be removed from Xbox LIVE. Additionally, there will be a three-month notice before any titles that meet the above criteria are delisted.
Whitten goes on to say that while there won't be a Spring dashboard update, "the team will be releasing a new digital rights management tool next month that will allow you to better consolidate your licenses for downloaded content to a single Xbox and allow you the freedom to be able to play your content both online and offline." Thank God!
Finally, it's revealed that Microsoft will be "launching a new fully funded 1st party studio which will be focused on high quality digital content creation."
Hit the jump for my thoughts on this onslaught of news.
Let's face it: there are quite a few utterly horrible Xbox LIVE Arcade games out on the market right now. It makes sense that Microsoft would want us to forget that these games ever existed so that the service's image could slowly be improved while hosting fees become lower in the process.
However, from Contra to Triggerheart to Pac-Man, there are quite a few decent titles that have scores lower than 65% on Metacritic. And what if we own a game that gets delisted? Will we be able to re-download it at a later point in time? Guess we'll just have to wait and see how this decision to remove games plays out.
Even though the XBLA news is a little disheartening, it's great to hear that a DRM fix is on the horizon. I don't know about the rest of you, but I own more than 50 LIVE Arcade titles, and whenever I bring my Xbox 360 over to my grandparents' non-Internet enabled house, I'm unable to play most of them because I've had four 360s die on me.
As for the announcement that Microsoft is opening a first-party studio to make some much-needed good XBLA games, how funny would it be if one of their titles failed comercially and critically, and had to be delisted?
Contest:
4:54 PM on 05.22.2008
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bye bye Space Giraffe.
However, the choice of less content is ALWAYS bad for the consumer. Some people like Space Giraffe *shrug*
http://www.warworld.net/
They announced that it was heading towards XBLA about a year ago. I'm pretty sure its been ready for about 8 months now but MS/UBisoft aren't launching it for some reason. I've got the game on the PC and its great fun so its not due to quality. The impression I got from the devs off the forums was that they were in the dark as well.
secondly, this is what I thought would never happen. I have been told from others that they won't purchase online content for this very reason and I always thought that Microsoft being such the large company that they are wouldn't remove content from the service.
but boy am I wrong. this is quite disappointing. I am left wondering what "delist" mean. does that mean it will be removed completely? will you still be able to play online with a friend if two of you have the game? Will you be able to redownload it if you would ever need to? Would you be able to search for the game and download it that way if you didn't own it yet?
anyway I look at it, this is bad news. Microsoft should really reconsider doing this.
Then every three months or whatever, keep cutting the price in half until it disappears. Or something
For some reason I played Daikatana only after knowing how bad it was.
old game delete... BOOOOOOOOO
fucking Microsoft trying to save money, fuck you, you already have ads, AND charge me 50 dollars a year. you fucking host those shitty games for my downloading pleasure.
I don't understand their excuse for skipping the spring update though. The summer update better be massive.
I think the bad/old game delete is comparable a retail store clearing out their shelves. Less clutter, makes room for more stuff, etc. I think they are missing one component though...they need to try and sell these titles that are borderline delistings at a discount. 100 - 200 points.
And people do bitch about Yaris, but I didn't pay for it and neither did you. I don't feel cheated for a game that was free.
This will also affect the achievement rate for games that I own. If anyone of them has an online achievement how hard is that gonna be to get on a delisted game?
My beef is that Microsoft took until NOW to finally fix the goddamn DRM issue. I have been on them since DECEMBER TO FIX MY FUCKING GAMES.
And I still have 8 of them that are still not playable online.
You know what happened today? Out of the fucking blue?
Microsoft called to apologize to me for not fixing this, and that they're finally going to relicense my remaining content to me. How fucking sweet of them.
I only had to wait 6 months, how convenient and timely for a fix...
As a result of this shit, I have become FAR more critical and picky about choosing any games at all to buy off of XBLA. I WANT to buy Penny Arcade's game, but I do not want to deal with this stupid bullshit. They say they're fixing it. I don't want to find out if they did or not. It should never have been broken in the first fucking place.
Microsoft, you fail at digital distribution. It's why you're last place on all fronts but here. This only worked because you lied about ease of use and simplicity.
Wait a minute, isn't that the problem? That your licenses are tied to your Xbox, and when you get a new one it fucks everything up? Also, I'm sure they'll be grandfathering in old games, but still I'm not going to celebrate until they announce the specifics. I could see them fixing the DRM on future games and me still being screwed if my wife wants to play UNO under her gamertag (I have to sign in on the second controller, which is pretty dumb).
I don't see the need to delete crappy games. Why not just not accept crappy games? Tell Toyota to take their Yaris and shove it.
Not really much of a cynic are you?? This isnt about Microsoft only hosting good games, this is about Microsoft choosing to initially host crap games, but 'delist' (whatever that means) once the word gets out that its not worth buying.
I'm also interested as to what they will do with 'Grandfathered' titles. And what is the 6% conversion rate rated out of, total gold accounts, total units moved, etc?? Because as more people get the console, the rate is going to drop over time.
My fear is that the latter will most likely be the case. I have a feeling this is not so much quality control as Microsoft trying to save a few bucks by freeing up server space.
Granted I could care less if I can't see Frank in a red suite but I'm still working on Shiviring Isles and it sucks that I have to be logged into live before I start the game or I can't play any of the stuff I payed for. Same with my Live Arcade games, even my dashboard theme.