Microsoft To Delist Underperforming XBLA Titles
In an interview with Next Generation, Microsoft's Marc Whitten, the general manager of Xbox Live, outlined several recent and upcoming changes for the service. First, the company will forgo their usual Spring dashboard update this year, although they will be releasing a new DRM tool which will hopefully resolve the problems some customers have playing their old downloads on new machines. They've also increased the file size limit for XBLA games from 150 MB to 350 MB, as well as adding a new price point for games, 1600 MP (around $20).
Most notably, In an effort to clean up their online store's interface, Whitten also announced plans to cull the service of some games that haven't lived up to their critical or commercial potential.
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% on the service. This way titles are not just considered if they are not selling well or not getting good reviews, but actually a combination of both. We will also give a three-month notice before delisting any title. Overall I think you will find this will focus the catalogue more on larger, more immersive games and make it much easier to find the games you are looking for.
I'm all for improving browse-ability, and while it certainly would be a pain to load through a list of hundreds, eventually thousands of unwanted games, I'm not sure this is the best way to handle the situation. Primarily, I don't like setting the precedent of using Metacritic or Gamerankings scores as some kind of objective measure of a game's quality. In the case of many of these titles, I'm not sure there is a large enough pool of reviews to determine whether the game deserves to live or die. As well, gamers who suffer a hard drive failure might be a little peeved when they find they can't re-download Marathon (Metacritic score: 63) or Xevious (Metacritic score: 56). Not to suggest either title is on the chopping block, but we don't know what Microsoft considers a sales success. Lastly, it removes the advantage of unlimited "shelf space" from digital distribution and brings the service closer to the commercial Darwinism we see at retail chains. Ultimately, Microsoft can do whatever they want with their bandwidth, but solving an organizational problem by just deleting files seems like chopping off your least favorite toe because your shoes are too tight.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: MS to Delist XBLA Titles [Next-Gen.biz]
Dawdle
Posted to Video Games on 24 May 2008
· Comments (7)
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Name: Dave
Love the analogy at the end. And I agree. Even though I doubt I'll care about any of the titles that get deleted, it seems like a lousy solution. They should just portion the crappy games into another section of the marketplace, maybe even market them as failed games and sell them at a discount! That would be funny.
I am disgusted by this. It's totally unjustifiable and shitty.
I think the only thing that bothers me about this is the hard drive failure issue, and I agree with Richie on them relocating or discounting the games instead of just removing them completely :(
Such is the problem with DLC, and the reason that hard copies of games are the best.
I believe all the games on ther service have value to someone and have archive value, but that 6% conversion rate suggests to me that some titles might be costing Microsoft money (in bandwidth and server costs) to distribute.
I'm for relocating, or for adding a button on the bottom somewhere for "Archived Titles" or "All Titles."
I want the marketplace to be like a store, where it gets rid of old and weak games, and replaces them with fresh and new games. But I also want the marketplace to let me visit that Used Games store that has copies of all the titles ever made.
This is not the time for MS to fool around with this stuff. Between this and shuffling around royalty percentages, it is as if they are trying to actively drive development efforts to WiiWare or PSN.
Also, this gives me another opportunity to whine about numbered scoring and why it's bad. Seriously, how can Marathon get a metascore of 65 when a game in the same genre with fewer features, more technical glitches, and crappier online performance revives an 80 metascore? [Sorry, but the xbla port of Doom isn't that hot] I realize that scoring is subjective, but the difference between those two titles is too far apart for "nostalgia" alone.
MS does need to deal with the high amount of crap of their service, but this isn't the right way to do it.