Three more Xbox Originals coming

By Ellie Gibson Published 6 February, 2008

But no Conker or Jade Empire.

Microsoft has announced three more original Xbox games will soon be available for download from Xbox Live.

The titles in question include Ninja Gaiden Black, Tecmo's super-hard, super-fast fighting game, and Black - the 2006 shooter from Burnout boys Criterion. The third game is action RPG Sid Meier's Pirates!

All three will be released for download on February 11th, each priced at 1200 Microsoft points (around GBP 10 / EUR 14).

Meanwhile, you may have noticed the Internet afire with rumours Jade Empire and Conker Live & Reloaded are also joining the Xbox Originals collection. The rumours are rubbish, it turns out. Ah well.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (31) Latest comment 4 years ago

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

  • Nick007 #1 4 years ago

    Ninja Gaiden black is the best action game ever made. I expect Ninja Gaiden 2 to be GOTY...

  • Arcadiian #2 4 years ago

    I've not played Black or Pirates, so these might be my first foray into the world of "Xbox Originals". Catchy name, that.

  • Ryze #3 4 years ago

    Excelent. How long has Black been BC for?

  • SteveB #4 4 years ago

    Anyone know how well Ninja Gaiden plays on the 360 ?

  • Ryze #5 4 years ago

    Hopefully they'll put Outrun 2006 up also.

  • Arcadiian #6 4 years ago

    "Anyone know how well Ninja Gaiden plays on the 360 ?"

    It worked well for me. Didn't play it for too long, but had no problems with it.

  • Ryze #7 4 years ago

    It's fine, but the left/right camera control is still backwards.

    For me this breaks the game as it's so difficult and demanding.

    The next worst issue is that you lose your saved games and have to start again!!!

  • bozman #8 4 years ago

    Hmm £10 sounds pretty dear to me - pick most of these up pre-owned for half the price.

  • kissthestick #9 4 years ago


    Microsoft's 2 "Black" games during America's Black history month :)

  • ccfb #10 4 years ago

    Any of these work over VGA?

  • peterfll #11 4 years ago

    Black BC = for a while now, at least a year.

  • gman7714 #12 4 years ago

    @ Bozman,

    If you can find NGB for under a tenner anywhere then you have done well!! I've been looking around for it for a while! A copy on ebay went for £15+pp just the other day. Glad I stopped bidding at a tenner :)

  • gman7714 #13 4 years ago

    @ ccfb

    I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that VGA is not supported on XO's

  • moggsy #14 4 years ago

    Hmm £10 sounds pretty dear to me - pick most of these up pre-owned for half the price.

    The game developer would get zero from such a transaction though. £10 is a bargain for most of these games. Plus the convenience of having them sat on your hard drive ready to go is not to be underestimated.
    Edited by 1 at 06/02/08 @ 14:14

  • menage #15 4 years ago

    NG, awesome, but with my 20Gb harddrive I'll probably wait for 2.

    I would like some Orta though, since the emulation on the dvd is fucked.

  • groovychainsaw #16 4 years ago

    The trouble is the convenience of having all your hard drive space taken up by one game, leaving the xbox unable to anyhting else is less appreciated... I know there's a bigger hard drive out there, but its too expensive, so can't justify keeping my hard drive virtually unusable until I complete the xbox 1 game. Anyone else found that the hard drive space appears to 'creep' smaller and smaller? I cleared everything that I was able to the other day (every single thing from the delete menu, barring a couple of downloadable content things) and still only had 8Gb left... Starting to see the benefit of the PS3's easily swappable hard drives now...

  • moggsy #17 4 years ago

    @ groovychainsaw

    The 120Gb hard drive was £80 on Amazon the other day and you could sell your 20Gb for about £35 profit on Ebay meaning a total outlay of £45. That's what I've done anyway...

  • GordonCaladan #18 4 years ago

    Can anyone report on their experience with Black on the 360 wr to framerate etc?

  • SlackMaster #19 4 years ago

    I've always wondered how long on average the originals take to download... I know line speed and size of the download will affect, with most games clocking over 3Gb, so I'm guessing it might take all day.

  • Mr_Bogus #20 4 years ago

    Black Monday, then.

  • moggsy #21 4 years ago

    @ SlackMaster

    Just leave the download going overnight - should get the best speed then also.
    Edited by 1 at 06/02/08 @ 15:03

  • Nick007 #22 4 years ago

    Ninja Gaiden black is still 20 quid second hand on Amazon and play.com. So I will be downloading it for a tenner instead. Sold my copy about a year ago, dumbest thing I ever did.

  • PameBoy #23 4 years ago

    @ groovychainsaw:

    "Anyone else found that the hard drive space appears to 'creep' smaller and smaller?"

    You want to try clearing your cache, mate. Go into the options by pressing Y on the HDD icon then press X,X,LB,RB,X,X I think

    Anyways I'd actually quite like to try all three of these. I've still got the original ninja gaiden disc but is black better enough to warrant expense of a tenner?
    Edited by 1 at 06/02/08 @ 15:12

  • miiiguel #24 4 years ago

    Call me a geek, but I really dislike the ulgy logo that gets printed in one's games list after we play an Original. It wasn't like that before Fall's update.

    SlackMaster: I've been able to download them within 4-6 hours, and my connecton isn't very fast.
    Edited by 1 at 06/02/08 @ 15:49

  • Bagpuss #25 4 years ago

    Whats gonna happen to all these gigabytes of downloaded games and all the other stuff when MS bring out the successor to the 360?.

    I cant see an easy way of transferring 20GB+ onto a new consoles HD, (assuming it has one, Flash drives anyone?.)

    Actually come to think of it, i cant see the 360's successor being BC anyway...

  • miiiguel #26 4 years ago

    "I cant see an easy way of transferring 20GB+ onto a new consoles HD"
    I transfered my 18gb of data from an older Premium to an Elite, pretty fast with the transfer kit.

  • EmiliasHorse #27 4 years ago

    WoW I am happy to see all three titles.

    Think I will buy NG Black and Pirates. Now hows about bunging some achievement points in to add spice?

    And put me down for Outrun 2006 and Conker, and Project Zero when you get around to it MS.

  • Santino #28 4 years ago

    i already own Ninja Gaiden Black but will be buying it yet again on this. i love digital distribution and the game is absolutely brilliant. The people who had tried it using BC but found it laggy should rest assured that thankfully it was fixed some time ago and runs fine now, only problem is the FMV cutscenes run at 30 fps.

  • FooAtari #29 4 years ago

    @moggsy
    "The 120Gb hard drive was £80 on Amazon the other day and you could sell your 20Gb for about £35 profit on Ebay meaning a total outlay of £45. That's what I've done anyway..."

    £80 for a 120gb hard drive is still robbery... Can get stadnard 500Gb hard drive for less than that!

    Anyway, where the hell is RSC2?? Get it sorted MS

  • moggsy #30 4 years ago

    @FooAtari

    Yes but selling your old 20GB 'daylight robbery' hard drive offsets the cost of the 120GB. Also remember it's actually a laptop hard drive which are more expensive than PC ones and that you get a transfer cable and software with it for getting files from your old 20GB hard drive.

  • SomaticSense #31 4 years ago

    I'm hugely interested in NGB. I loved the original version, yet missed out when Black came out. I'd be well prepared to pay a tenner for it.

    But 6 gigs? My 20gig (or rather, 12 gig) says no way though.