Midway titles disappear from XBLA

By Robert Purchese Published 17 February, 2010

Are they being moved to the Game Room?

Midway Games' Xbox Live Arcade portfolio has, as if by magic, mysteriously disappeared.

Gone are Mortal Kombat 3, Defender, Gauntlet, Paperboy and Smash TV.

Are they being held back for the release of Game Room - the virtual Xbox Live arcade space - this March? Or have they fallen foul of legal muddy waters, as they belong to a company that no longer exists?

We'll attempt to find out.

The French and UK operations of Midway were bought by Martin Speiss last August and are now known as Tradewest Games.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 2 years ago

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

  • menage #1 2 years ago

    Wasn't gameroom for all ages or PG? MK3 isn't going there then.

  • Dizzy #2 2 years ago

    Probably a combination of both.
    Edited by 2 at 17/02/10 @ 10:51

  • rodpad #3 2 years ago

    The MK3 port on the 360 has the shoulder buttons annoyling reversed.

  • Monkey_Puncher #4 2 years ago

    That'll be the reason they've been removed then, the shoulder buttons have been reversed.

  • lavalant #5 2 years ago

    I noticed this the other day actually, Double Dragon has dissapeared, a game that I have paid for and did play now and again, but due to RROD and getting another xbox I was going to download it again but it had been removed.

    Drills home the fact that games people buy on these download services they don't actually own, I'll probably be forced to buy it again on game room as they said they aren't cross compatible.

  • Monkey_Puncher #6 2 years ago

    Double Dragon and Speedball were removed a while back, something about publishing rights or something.

  • Rpt81 #7 2 years ago

    WEren't MS thinking of taking older titles off XBLA anyway, or did that get ditched with the NXE?

    I certainly recall there being talk of removing games that weren't selling.

  • Anthony_UK #8 2 years ago

    They did state that Gameroom was for all ages, which I do think is the most stupid thing ever. Surely they must see how short sighted this is?

    They mentioned the games on the service would include some of the first up untill games from the late 80's. So other than the fact that you need access to some kind of debit/credit card to buy the games in the first place. Surely they should aim this at people like myself who grew up playing the likes of Wrestlefest, Double Dragon and Shadow Dancer. To ruin so much potential just so that anyone can play is almost insane! Anyone under the age of 16, who will have probably never even played half the games before, and not bother anyway!

    God that makes me feel old!
    Edited by 1 at 17/02/10 @ 10:57

  • RobotRocker #9 2 years ago

    I certainly recall there being talk of removing games that weren't selling.

    There was, but the usual nerd outcry made sure that they wouldn't or else stuff like Triggerheart Excelica or Ikaruga would be removed. There was also talk of getting rid of games that were under 60 on Metacritic for a while but Developers took offence to that and it was scrapped. The only game that was removed due to it being awful was Yaris and thats no massive loss really.

  • penhalion #10 2 years ago

    are they being moved to the games room

    Yes...yes they are. So will some atari and capcom offerings, as well as others.

  • lavalant #11 2 years ago

    But according to this you'll still have to rebuy it if you want to play it in games room or if your xbox dies,even if you manage to back it up on a memory unit you won't be able to play it without having an active connection to xbox live.

    [link url=http://kotaku.com/5459575/xbox-360s- game-room-wants-you-to-rebuy-your-arcade
    ]http://ko taku.com/5459575/xbox-360s-game...[/link]

  • Retroid #12 2 years ago

    Any games rated above Gameroom's 'PG' rating can just be separately rated - the blanket rating is just to save a bit of cash and to avoid every single game having to be rated itself, which add up when you're talking the game-a-day numbers they've talked about.

    As for these games disappearing, the downloads should still be there but they won't get listed on the store front for new purchases. At least, that's my understanding.

  • homerramone #13 2 years ago

    I still think the idea of not being able to play the version of (say) scramble that I already purchased for XBLA in this funky new games room unless I pay for it again is just plain stupid. Especially since the main difference is the lack of the revamped graphics (which in a lot of cases were awful anyway).

    It certainly wont encourage me to buy anything from the game room.

    Unfortunately what M$ will almost certainly do is make any new versions of games go in the arcade room only and NOT appear as a regular XBLA offering. Which is going to mean if you dont want the games room bollocks and prefer the menu that is XBLA your stuffed.

    Oh and of course its not going to take much more than 1 old VCS download for people to realise that old VCS games havent stood the test of time very well - so I dont see those wokring very will in this shiny new room.

  • BobsUncle #14 2 years ago

    "I certainly recall there being talk of removing games that weren't selling. "

    If this is true they should just give them away for free.

    They could pay the dev/publisher a small fee to cover any odd downloads that might happen in the future then advertise it as free.

    That would certainly get more custom into XBLA by possible repeat buys due to familiar name recognition and it would be a good one-upper over Sony they could brag about.

  • lavalant #15 2 years ago

    @teh9182 the license transfer tool only works if the game are still on xbox marketplace for you to redownload, take me with Double Dragon, I've basically lost it all together as it's been removed from marketplace. If it appears on Game Room, according to above article I'll have to pay for it again as Ms claim it's a different version (not HD etc)

    From my understanding of this article I thought Midway games had also been removed from the server, meaning if you own any Midway games and your xbox breaks you're in the same position.
    Edited by 2 at 17/02/10 @ 14:10

  • lavalant #16 2 years ago

    @teh I can't see Double Dragon, or any place that I can re-download it. If you know where I could find it please let me know.

  • Fodder #17 2 years ago

    Does it still show up in your purchase history on Xbox.com? What happens if you try to queue up the download from there?

  • metalangel #18 2 years ago

    Double Dragon is still on Games Room, right? Despite all that outcry that back in the day when the gang punch you bird and carry her off, you could see a single white pixel which was allegedly her underpants! Punching and abducting her was fine, though. Don't the Family Settings apply to Games Room? Otherwise you can't play MK3 but you could still download the demo of Conan to cut some people's arms off and gawp at some tits.

  • lavalant #19 2 years ago

    @Fodder @Teh ahh nice one, it works cheers!

    So games that are removed from marketplace are accessible via xbox.com, okay squares that one up.

  • BBIAJ #20 2 years ago

    Yup, and as my full copy of DD insists as showing up as a trial version only everytime I boot it up, I just upgrade it to the full game in-game by re-downloading it.