I'm not sure this is the best way to handle this. I happen to be a big fan of Cyberball, and while it isn't for everyone, I'm sure more people would at least try it out if the prices were reduced.

Instead of delisting items, how about reducing the cost of the item? Oblivion's DLC for Knights of the Nine costs $30, while the retail copy of the game with the Knights of the Nine content can be obtained for less. That way, the developer could at least obtain any last profits off people that want to play the title for a lower price.

I could understand if the titles were being removed to make more space for new titles on the servers, but they are only being delisted, which means they are not being removed, allowing people to redownload them (at least, that's how I read it).

Lastly, Metacritic has an inherent issue with its rating system. If a game comes out with an initial flaw that later gets patched or new content is added, reviewers do not perform another review based on the new content or patch, which could considerably change how the game is played.

This does not bode well for community-released or indie games, which do not have the budget and following that big-budget companies have...

Why do I have a feeling Jeff Minter is not going to be happy once the first wave of deletions occur?

About the delisting...

On Marketplace if your content is no longer up, you can still download it. You just have to go into your Account and look at your history to redownload this. I have done this with TV Shows before.

Hexx, that is removed from further distribution due to licensing, but not actually deleted.

I hope you are right with your assumption, but this is really a case of the unkown.

I rarely get a chance to play video games anymore due to school, but if I goto download a title I have purchased and it isn't available then that is the end of the xbox for me. (If any other download only service does remove titles entirely then that is the end of those services also.)

Hate to be the pessimist, but there is no precident for this sort of action...well except for entire download services going bankrupt and customers losing all access entirely...but I don't think MS went bankrupt.

Edit: for clarity

236 Robotron: 2084 2006 65
237 Bankshot Billiards 2 2005 65
238 Feeding Frenzy 2006 65
239 Dig Dug 2006 65
241 Ms. Pac-Man 2007 65 65
246 Gauntlet 2005 65
247 Crystal Quest 2006 64
248 Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe 2007 64
252 Hardwood Hearts 2005 64
256 Texas Hold 'em 2006 63
258 Fatal Fury Special 2007 63
260 Contra 2006 63
261 Marathon: Durandal 2007 63
264 Missile Command 2007 63
265 Time Pilot 2006 63
266 Track & Field 2007 63
267 Hardwood Backgammon 2005 62
270 Hardwood Spades 2005 62
271 Pac-Man 2006 62
273 Frogger 2006 62
274 Mad Tracks 2007 62
278 Root Beer Tapper 2007 61
281 Super Contra 2007 61
288 Geon: Emotions 2007 59
289 Soltrio Solitaire 2007 59
295 Rush'n Attack 2007 58
296 TMNT 2007 58
297 Aegis Wing 2007 58
298 Defender 2006 58
300 Double Dragon 2007 57
302 Xevious 2007 56
304 Gyruss 2007 56
310 Asteroids / Asteroids Deluxe 2007 55
312 Battlestar Galactica 2007 55
315 Centipede & Millipede 2007 55
319 Spyglass Board Games 2007 54
324 Tetris Splash 2007 53
328 Ecco the Dolphin 2007 53
338 Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2007 51
341 Wing Commander Arena 2007 51
342 Novadrome 2006 50
349 Shrek-N-Roll 2007 49
354 Scramble 2006 47
358 Street Trace: NYC 2007 45
361 TotemBall 2006 44
363 Word Puzzle 2007 44
364 New Rally-X 2006 43
369 Cyberball 2072 2007 41
371 Screwjumper! 2007 40
381 Yaris 2007 17

These are all the XBLA games that scored less than a 65 and have been available for over six months (with cuts from the first five months of this year, and December of '07). If this is all XBLA has to lose, than good riddance.

Of course, this obviously doesn't include sales-related factors. I doubt we'll be seeing the last of TMNT or Bankshot Billiards 2 anytime soon.

Some of those are bad, some are bad redos and some are on par.

The issue isn't if you like it or not, but what about the people who bought them? Oh and the fact that XBLA titles are rather unfairly revieww in the first place. There are some hideously crappy games not on that list peerly due to nostalgia and fanboism.

If they are going to continue to host them then might as well make them available to those who want them. If they are going to remove them then there had better be compensation.

Either way it does not build confidence in the service. It only makes a customer more uncertain about any purchases. If they remove a game you like from the service the nthe player base will only shrink over time and since XBL is P2P anyway there is no excuse for that.

there are a few good games in there like mad tracks

there are a few good games in there like mad tracks

The term "delist" to me means like what was said above (they will remove games from the list but those who paid for it will still be able to redownload it). Who knows but they do choose their terms carefully (delete vs delist) :) Also I really doubt we will miss the games that are taken off. My guess is the main metric is the 6% conversion rate.

Also did you miss the news that they are creating a 1st party XBLA dev studio in there? That is awesome news!!!

I don't care if the games are complete garbage, I don't want any games "delisted". If all of these bad games clutter up the list of arcade games maybe MS should do more than have a long ass list of games. If they want to improve the service they should implement a better search feature.

In the interview, they also said that they making 1600 MS points one of the offical prices for XBLA games.

Oh, by the by, even if the games are just "delisted" then people can still get screwed out of games they have purchased with replacement consoles and DRM issues and account migration issues.

MS is taking the major selling points of XBLA and eliminating them. Raising the official prices and not leaving a guarantee that you will always be able to download a game you purchased or would like to purchase from the service.

Someone needs to pin down an official from MS and grill them on all of this. There are too many possible imterpretations of the situation and we deserve to know what exactly MS is planning on doing.

Thanks for the list Falcon.

My problem is that I used to be an avid XBLA gamer, and as of recent I haven't been able to purchase titles due to financial constraints. I would love to have all of the XBLA titles available to play at a later date at least, but if I can't come up with the money to purchase them before they're delisted, that means I can't play them ever.

There has got to be some way to have the games available at a later date, as it makes no sense to just eliminate someone's work entirely off their service. It's not like it's costing them anything extra to list, as they are being stored on the servers (which is the main cost).

PS: I seriously doubt Yaris will be delisted, as it's free for the full game :)

yaris was a timed release, it will be gone after the summer (if memory serves). The game is built around the current Yaris models and will be removed before the new models are available.

Why not delist some of those crap-ass demos then they have for crappy retail games?

I'm against the delisting idea. They should just lower the price. This is assuming the game will still be downloadable and not "listed" anymore.

This is in the billion pages of comments on Major Nelsons site from him about the arcade game issue:

"I'll discuss the delisted arcade games issues on my show this week...but let's just say as I understand it, you don't have anything to be worried about. Think download history. Titles are not being pulled off the service, just delisted. As with anything, you can always redownload content via your account's download history. Marketplace blade->Account Management->Download History, select item, Download Again."

I really like this initiative by Microsoft, I prefer a service with less games but better quality overall than a crapload of shitty titles.

The download history backdoor is a BS answer. We all know that DRM casuses issues and just because they claim to have fixed the DRM doesn't mean they actually have.

I'm sorry but a MS mouthpiece telling everyone it will be alright and answering carefully worded questions with the assumption that everything will work perfectly is not what I want to hear.

We need a competent and realistic person to question MS on all of this.

I think this is lame and makes XBLA less attractive to developers. I also hate sites like metacritic. It makes people focus on the number instead of actually reading reviews.

Just a heads up about the file size increase from 100MB to 350MB. With the increase in size, so is the increase of price with the newly introduced 1600 MS Point option. Bigger games are now allowed to increase the price for their XBLA game titles. Believe me when I say that Penny Arcade Adventures is only the first Xbox Live Arcade game to adopt this price feature. Microsoft and Xbox Live plan on bringing a lot more of these games out with an announcement being made fairly soon.

Read the whole Interview at Next-Gen.biz

To Shadow::

Knights of the Nine cost 800 MSP ($10) on release day, November 21, '06.. Shivering Isles released on March 26th of '07 for 2400MSP ($30). The store/shelve copy of Shivering Isles had Knights of the Nine included and sold for $30. That's a savings of $10, of which one must note that this saving was made possible by the 4-month wait for a retail version of Knights of the Nine. A Game-of-the-Year version of Oblivion was made available at retailers 2 weeks before Halo 3's release (September of '07) which also included the Knights of the Nine content for $60. Again, you save $10 if you didn't get the game 17+ months after release or the DLC 9+ months post-availability.

On topic::

I don't think title delisting has to do with space, but more of a late attempt at quality control. The developers have the option of reducing the price point (with the low end of $5). Most $10 releases to me are worth that much, even if they are of interest to only a very few amount of people. Reducing the price does not increase sales appreciably.

I feel it's a popularity thing. Niche games or new releases in a crowded genre won't see well. The 360 has a clout of games, both retail and arcade. There's so much to play that even the best arcade titles can't hope to sell 100,000 copies in 6 months unless given away as some kind of compensation. Heck, I have 3 new arcade titles sitting unplayed and 3 retail games taking a back seat.

The metacritic criteria is the most telling part of the quality control angle. With wiiware planning on having a whole load of crap available, it's important that the Xbox division market the Arcade service as a place where quality titles are available. If you want to convince someone to get a 360 to play a well-produced title like Penny Arcade Adventures E1, the task is made more difficult by stinkers like Space Giraffe (no, you can't convince me that game is comparable to even Robotron in basic play mechanics).

The 6 months time period is to allow publishers of low-selling titles to do whatever it takes (patches, advertising, free DLC, etc.) to increase sales. In less words, a second attempt to increase the titles quality and appeal, albeit post-release.

The conversion rate may just be the most important criteria listed. The Live Arcade service is not on computers. It isn't competing against tens and hundreds of others. It is better known, and comparatively advertised. There are clear guidelines to ensure high quality and functional releases. With in-system advertising (blade/marketplace), there's no reason a title that has already been green-lighted and certified cannot convince more than 1 in 17 users to purchase it. I say a 6% conversion rate is a bit low given all the steps that have been taken to ensure only high-quality games are available.

MS obviously valued having the most games of the current console generation more than quality of the games. Now, they decided having a ton of bad games isn't a good way to sell consoles and I agree.

Removing or delisting games in any form is not the solution to the problem and only creates more issues. Ramping up quality control for all forward releases is a much better idea and doesn't punish customers.

MN's podcast attempts to address the issue as well this week, with Aaron Greenberg (Big VIP).

EDIT: Major's podcast indicates that "Tell a friend" will still be around.

Does anyone else worry they will start getting oddball friend requests from people who see a delisted game in your gaming history and want to get referred to it?

They should be put together on more arcade volumes that have never come out. Or given away for free before delisting. Thank you and goodnight.

If you buy the full game straight away is that included in the conversion rate? Because if it isn't I will download the trial for now on before buying the games I 100% want :)

I've been wondering this: What is involved in the conversion rate? Is this referring to people who download the demo and then purchase the full version from there? From your post, it seems as if this is the case.

From Wikipedia:

"In Internet Marketing, conversion rate refers to the number or percentage of visitors who convert casual content views or website visits into desired actions based on subtle or direct requests from marketers, advertisers, and content creators."

So I guess that in the XBLA case, conversion rate refers to the total number of purchases of a downloadable game compared to the total number of downloaded demos of that title.

This is just an assumption, so take it for what it's worth.

Cool. Thanks, Ashn0d. I think your assumption is probably right. XBL probably also keeps track of how many games are downloaded/bought through the links on the Dashboard blades.

Joystiq downloaded and "reviewed" every XBLA game in danger of being delisted (based on Metacritic scores and time on the service), and I have to say that I won't miss some of those titles.

With the recent controversy regarding Microsoft not wanting more arcade ports on XBLA (about Cave's shoot-em-ups Ketsui and DoDonPachi: DaiOuJou) I think that the first titles to be delisted will be stuff like Centipede, Defenders, Frogger and other arcade "classics".

You can read the whole article at Joystiq