Crap XBLA games to be delisted

By Tom Bramwell Published 23 May, 2008

Plus: new MS XBLA studio, new DRM tool.

Microsoft is going to start delisting older Xbox Live Arcade titles that have a low Metacritic average and have sold in very small quantities.

That's according to Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten, who also ruled out a spring dashboard update, and announced a new first-party game studio dedicated to producing original content for Xbox Live Arcade.

"We will be delisting older underperforming titles in order to keep the service focused on a section of high quality games," Whitten told Next-gen.biz.

"The way it will work is that the title will need to be at least 6 months old and have a Metacritic score below 65 and a conversion rate below 6 percent on the service." (In other words, if fewer than 6 percent of people who downloaded the demo have bought it.) "We will also give a three-month notice before delisting any title."

The lack of a spring dashboard update presumably scotches a recent "leaked" list of features. Instead of that, Whitten said we will receive a "new digital rights management tool next month" designed to "consolidate your licences for downloaded content to a single Xbox and allow you the freedom to be able to play your content both online and offline".

At the moment, XBLA and Video Store content downloaded on one Xbox 360 cannot be played on another console unless the gamertag that paid for it is active and logged into Xbox Live. Not too much of a problem if you're just round a friend's house, but a bit of a pain if you've had to replace your console for whatever reason. We've heard this happens.

On the final point, the new XBLA-dedicated development studio, Whitten couldn't say much, other than it exists and "will be focused on high quality digital content creation", with "some big original XBLA games" to be announced soon. E3, perhaps? We shall see.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (55) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DB2k #1 4 years ago

    shit me
    I better go buy all 15 versions of pacman they saw fit to release then before they go

  • betahoven #2 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:36:16 17-12-2011

  • brooza #3 4 years ago

    hooray for the drm tool!

  • Gnort #4 4 years ago

    Surely persistent sales are far more important than the Metacritic rating? I'm fairly sure those two factors don't always coincide.

  • penhalion #5 4 years ago

    @betahoven

    You probably haven't been following the recent arguments about the content of XBLA. The gist of it is this. Developers and gamers are complaining that a lot of sub standard (call it shovelware if you will) has been released on live arcade. This has in effect stifled a lot of the original content that should have been appearing on the console. With, I think, over 100 titles on the service now (it's probably less). It's getting hard to find the good stuff. Delisting is simply a good way of managing that content.

    The way I would have handled it (seeing as people who have purchased a delisted game MUST still be able to download it again if their console knackers out), would have been to move such underperforming titles onto an archives list that people could access through one of the many dashboard menus. If they don't do this, then they risk introducing a major downside to live arcade in that some people will loose the games they purchased with no way to re-download them!

  • Bealsy #6 4 years ago

    How random.

    * secretly pissed off about the cool supposed updates that aren't actually coming *

  • Eldritch #7 4 years ago

    Let's see if Epic still buys Chair once Undertow gets delisted.

    /coat

  • Darren #8 4 years ago

    I think it's a good move by Microsoft myself as it'll improve the overall quality of XBLA no end if all the sub-par tat is removed, i.e. most of Konami's and Namco's backcatalogue along with all those poor identikit puzzle clones!!! I think it's good that Microsoft are taking note of the reviews because it means newer XBLA will hopefully be of a higher standard than they are now. IMO there are far too many mediocre XBLA games, so much so that I've hardly bought any in the last 18 months. Usually I download the trial, play it for a few minutes, scoff at how poor it is then immediately delete it. Thankfully the last dashboard update means that I can try them without them appearing in my Games Played list, prior to that I was loathe to even play the trials! LOL

  • systems #9 4 years ago

    So instead of a lovely spring update we get all the crap games removed. Great.

  • menage #10 4 years ago

    Good plan, although crap is in the eye of the beholder of course.

    But I'd rather have they didn't release crap in the firts place. More quality control please. Sure it's subjective, but most of us recognize a turd when we see it.

  • peterfll #11 4 years ago

    Well, it wouldn't be such a problem if Live was easier to navigate. But it's a dog and the volume of content doesn't help.

  • Triggerhappytel #12 4 years ago

    65%? Is this MS perpetuating the myth that anything below 7/10 is a bad score?! I mean, I can understand if they were saying 45%, or something, but it doesn't seem like a very good long-term business model to restrict the consumer's choice.

  • Eldritch #13 4 years ago

    How about offering those "crap" games for free instead of removing them entirely?

  • Madafunkola #14 4 years ago

    No spring update?!?! But the PS3 gets a new update every WEEK!? I, for one, feel very hard done by. :(

  • chrisjm #15 4 years ago

    so if someone has bought one of these turds and their xbox dies they wont be able to redownload them? nice.

  • Widge #16 4 years ago

    yeah but the MS updates have a larger amount in them compared to the PS3 udpates, so over the course of a year it balances out.

  • Steroyd #17 4 years ago

    You probably haven't been following the recent arguments about the content of XBLA. The gist of it is this. Developers and gamers are complaining that a lot of sub standard (call it shovelware if you will) has been released on live arcade. This has in effect stifled a lot of the original content that should have been appearing on the console.

    Wasn't it MS who approved to put them on XBLA in the first.

    I think taking the games off is a crappy idea, I've heard the XBLA's UI is a pain to navigate through (which might be the cause of the aforementioned above) so deleting the games is like shovelling turd under the carpet you've still got the smell.

    I've already agreed to get ass raped by MS/Sony/Steam/Nintendo the moment I buy a Digital Download, the fact that this can and is going to happen doesn't sit well with me at all.
    They should have put it in a turd section not take it off completely.

    And using Metacritic to what's pooh and what's not is an awful idea, EG is just about the only one who reviews these games (which they seemed to have stopped lately) wouldn't that horribly skew what should and shouldn't be nominated for the chop if metacritic was only able to compile about 4 reviews for their site.
    Edited by 1 at 23/05/08 @ 09:30

  • GordonCaladan #18 4 years ago

    Yeah, go ahead Microsoft, make room for quality games like Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label X!
    ...
    Oh, right, but you rejected that and all other "faithful arcade ports"...

  • Drazgal #19 4 years ago

    For the people complaining about the metacritic scores being used for this, the article clearly states AND the games convertion rate. So a game with poor score but people are buying after playing to the demo will quite happily survive. The only things being deleted will be old, poor scoring poor selling games.

  • FreakyZoid #20 4 years ago

    > It's getting hard to find the good stuff. Delisting is simply a good way of managing that content.

    No, delisting is the quick and lazy way of doing it. Implementing a better way for people to browse and rate the content that's on there is a good way of managing it.

  • fruitpunch #21 4 years ago

    Drazgal: Yeah, but according to one of the guys who works for Freeverse, 6% conversion ratio is very high, most games are closer to 2% considering when you factor in the amount of people who have auto-downloads on and such, expecting a high conversion rate is stupid, especially when low conversion rates are caused by their own system!
    Edited by 1 at 23/05/08 @ 09:44

  • Nookyalar #22 4 years ago

    How family-unfriendly is XBOX live? If different family members are to have different Live profiles, they each have to pay for their own gold account to be online. Thanks MicroScum.

  • GamesConnoisseur #23 4 years ago

    Whatever the arguments on the actual average base score MS should have used or the percentage points, it can only be a good thing for us to have the more robust choices and indeed for publishers to consider XBLA more seriously.

    Money talks and it is the reason behind this move, and by the way PacMan CE is really addictive and worthy of a serious gamer's attention!

  • Frumper #24 4 years ago

    There are many ways to deal with this and they've chosen one that looks at critical opinion of the industry together with cold, hard sales facts. 6% in most cases should be small however there maybe exceptions.

    I can imagine the number of, world wide, downloads for the 'Ecco the Dolphin' (MetaCritic = 53) trial were pretty high. If the conversion was 5.9% that could still be a reasonably high number but would get dropped.

    I also don't think they will stop offering the ability for people to re-download if they have purchased it otherwise they would have to give refunds. They would just take the game off for new downloads.

    It will be interesting to see when they publish the list of 'to be deleted' games, which of those manages to pull itself out of the 65/6% category with people then taking another look at it or new XBox live users being made aware of it's existence.

    Steroyd:
    "They should have put it in a turd section not take it off completely."

    I thought this too, maybe not label it turd though. ;o) Under performing bargain basement games, free or for a small notional MS Points cost, 50 or so.

  • jonsaan #25 4 years ago

    They should just bundle them up and sell them in packs.

  • krudster #26 4 years ago

    Or, gasp, lower the price of some of them. Imagine that!

  • Peew971 #27 4 years ago

    I sense the boot for Boogie Bunnies and I like it... What they should have done instead is create a 'Bargain Bin' section with all those titles sold for 100 MS Points. What's to lose?

  • DanWhitehead #28 4 years ago

    Metacritic is useful for getting a broad overview of the critical reaction to a game, but I really hate this notion that the Metacritic average is somehow a game's "true" score.

  • adhuin #29 4 years ago

    they're really cleaning the house!

    I'm counting 40+ xbla games with score lower than 65 in metacritic site.

    This includes pacman and ms. pacman, texas hold 'em and both contras.

  • groovychainsaw #30 4 years ago

    Presumably they would have to get the developer's vlessing to lower the price of the game, but it owuld make more sense to have a 'bargain bin' than simply delisting the games completely. Some of them could be worth a punt for 200 points or so...?

  • miiiguel #31 4 years ago

    Good move. It sure is cluttered nowdays. Btw, I think then they mean shit, it should be the really, really shity.

  • m0thr4 #32 4 years ago

    Damn... Space Giraffe narrowly misses getting binned (scored 68 on Metacritic).

  • viper_h #33 4 years ago

    SO no MKV support then?

  • DanWhitehead #34 4 years ago

    If a developer has their game de-listed, does that mean they're then free to distribute it elsewhere? I mean, theoretically speaking, since I doubt many would queue up to publish something that failed once already, but it does raise interesting questions of ownership. Microsoft would basically be preventing those games from ever making money again.

  • silke #35 4 years ago

    65% is absurdly high in this respect.

  • aine #36 4 years ago

    so microsoft has finally proved me right. digital distribution is going to destroy the history of gaming. availability is now at the whim of the publisher and console manufacturer. there is no second hand market. if you don't already have these games they might as well be gone forever.

  • Tanukitsune #37 4 years ago

    I certainly hope the sales of most classic games are good because it seems that NONE of them have a score higher than 65!

  • SirClive #38 4 years ago

    This will surely increase the quality of new releases as developers will only have 9 months to peddle their crap instead of the previous infinate life on XBLA. So if the developers want the longer run then they need to release better stuff.

  • penhalion #39 4 years ago

    Microsoft will definitely have to re-define their de-listing quote as technically people will need to be able to retrieve anything they purchased on live at a later date. The 360 doesn't rememeber what you bought and relies on live to tell it. This means, that unless Microsoft and the publishers are going to givr you back the points you spent purchasing a game that was subsequently delisted, then they need to give live users accounts a way to see the delisted software if it's been purchased.

  • Kneesrs #40 4 years ago

    Right now I'm guessing that de-listing simply means it won't be available for new purchases. But for those who've previously purchased a now de-listed game and need to re-download it, can't they just go to their download history? I believe that's tied to the gamertag so I'd imagine that you still could access the content for re-download that way, even if you can't get there directly through the marketplace.
    Edited by 1 at 23/05/08 @ 14:54

  • miiiguel #41 4 years ago

    Guess the increase of XBLA limit to 350mb + the new studio means awesome stuff coming 360 way. Not unusual though...

  • TheBoyChris #42 4 years ago

    Wow! More DRM tools! Just the exciting development I was waiting for!

    /sarcasm

  • ceti_eel1 #43 4 years ago

    Why dont they just do a very good "collaborative filtering" engine to enable XBLA to continue to allow high risk experimentation & satisfy fringe tastes.
    They could still have some "front page" listing whatever the mass market wants.
    Edited by 1 at 23/05/08 @ 16:05

  • Feanor #44 4 years ago

    Why do they always use Metacritic ahead of the superior Gamerankings? By superior I mean I prefer it.

  • WinterSnowblind #45 4 years ago

    This isn't a bad thing, some of the games on there are so bad I can't imagine why anyone would want to purchase them. Cleaning things up a little will definitely help. And I'm not sure why so many people are just shrugging off the new DRM options, it sounds great to me. It's rather annoying having to turn my computer on before playing something like Oblivion, just so it can verify my content. Surely just veryifying once or twice a week would be enough, and hopefully that's what they're doing.

  • convercide #46 4 years ago

    That DRM tool is great for me. I bought my Elite and hate not being able to play my XBLA games when XBL goes up shit creek.

    @miiguel

    The 350Meg file size will really help SSF2:HF HD Remix as they were complaining the 150Meg size would ruin the texture resolution as the wanted 1080p. The size will only help.

    Thinking about it, it's now half the size of a CD. We could be getting some cracking games. At a push you could compress Deus Ex to that. :)
    Edited by 1 at 23/05/08 @ 22:18

  • aine #47 4 years ago

    some of the games on there are so bad I can't imagine why anyone would want to purchase them

    i dunno, because people have different tastes? admittedly games arent as subjective in this area as films or music -if a game is full of bugs or controls poorly you can say pretty objectively that that's a bad thing - but what they're doing here is removing games based on the opinions of the media (and i'm sure you like many gamers have enjoyed one or two titles that scored below 65% in most reviews) and the majority of the 360-owning public. and don't forget, as anyone who's been on Live will surely know, the majority of the 360-owning public consists of racist homophobic american teens who dismiss a game as "gay" if it contains colours other than brown

  • twmac #48 4 years ago

    @madafunkola

    The PS3 does not get updates every week, unless you mean that they get new games and downloads.

    They appear to update a little more often than the 360, but the 'updates' are usually patches and refinements very similar to the ones you'd see when you put in a 360 game in it asks if you want to update it.

    Anyone suspect that Microsoft are waiting for HOME to finally be released before making any major changes to their LIVE service, or is it just me?

  • Madlax #49 4 years ago

    Microsoft: "we like to give customers more choices"

    *reads article*

    indeed.



  • Rev.StuartCampbell #50 4 years ago

    If I've understood correctly, the "DRM tool" is a brilliant development. Many XBLA games simply won't allow you to play them at all unless you're connected to Live, which is a massive pain in the arse on the few occasions Live is simply down, but will be a much bigger one in five years time when the servers get switched off. I hate the idea of games like Jetpac Refuelled and Space Giraffe being effectively lost to gaming forever just because there isn't a validation server running any more (the fate that befell Email X-Com, one of the best PC games ever), so if this is going to fix that it's actually awesomely good news.

  • subtlesnake #51 4 years ago

    "and don't forget, as anyone who's been on Live will surely know, the majority of the 360-owning public consists of racist homophobic american teens who dismiss a game as "gay" if it contains colours other than brown"

    I don't appealing to ridiculous caricatures really helps you understand the nature of Xbox Live's market.

  • smelly #52 4 years ago

    Stuart - dont worry i'm sure someone will make it available illegally for you to download - it'll give you justification to yourself that it's okay to pirate - while pulling your pud and telling yourself how important you are..

  • barnard666 #53 4 years ago

    I think this sucks, I dont mind them hiding them away a little more, but making them impossible to purchase just sucks...you know it makes me thing that I should go home now and by Gyruss, aonic1, and a few other things, just incase they get pulled before I buy them. But no F that. But this seriously is retarded, what if I want to play gauntlet with a buddy who has just purcahsed a 360, its worth £3 for a couple of hours fun..

    I love my xbox, but MS need to stop upsetting me!

    think of it this way - developers that made games that didnt sell Therefore losing them money) now have no chance to ever make that cash back.

  • Ryze #54 4 years ago

    MS:

    THE PROBLEM IS IN THE INTERFACE.

    DELIST AS MANY AS YOU WANT - IF THE INTERFACE DOESN'T IMPROVE FROM A BIG LONG LIST OR NOTHING, THEN I OFTEN WONT EVEN PLAY SOME OF THE GAMES I'VE ALREADY BOUGHT.

    INTERFACE, INTERFACE, INTERFACE.

    REVAMP XBLA

  • Ryze #55 4 years ago

    I'm so pissed off by this.

    re barnard666's comment, I have bought several games on the XBLA simply because someone on my friends list is playing, and asked me if I fancy a co-op / vs game.

    If said game is delisted then I'm left annoyed, and M$ lose money.

    How is this an improvement?

    FIX THE INTERFACE.