Microsoft reassures Xbox One owners over DRM rights

Xbox One games will remain available to play and re-download even if they are delisted from the Xbox Games Store, Microsoft has reassured.

The confirmation comes after an error earlier this week that left digital owners of Far Cry 4 unable to play the game.

Ubisoft's open-world adventure temporarily disappeared from the Xbox Games Store at the same time, leading some owners to suspect that Microsoft's DRM policies were at fault.

The wider implications were worrying - that owners might lose access to any games delisted from the Xbox One marketplace even if they had paid for them.

Microsoft has now clarified the issue and reassured that this is not the case.

"If customers own the rights to a game, they can visit their download history and initiate a re-download whenever they please," a spokesperson said in a statement passed to Eurogamer.

"Even if the game has been delisted from Xbox Store and is no longer available for purchase."

Neither Microsoft or Ubisoft have owned up to exactly what went wrong with Far Cry 4, but an earlier statement from the former suggested it was nothing more than an isolated incident.

"On Monday, some users were unable to access their digitally purchased base edition of Far Cry 4," a Microsoft spokesperson explained at the time.

"Our team has resolved the issue and all access to the title has been restored."

Games are rarely delisted from stores, and on Xbox 360 the practice was normally limited to smaller, download-only titles. Reasons for delisting have included a game's publisher losing rights to a particular franchise or trademark, or games which no longer hold up to date licenses for their music.