Microsoft To Begin Delisting Underperforming XBLA Games

Microsoft is going to begin removing underperforming titles from Xbox Live Arcade in order to increase its focus on "quality over quantity."

Speaking in an interview with Next-Gen, Xbox Live General Manager Marc Whitten said that Xbox Live Arcade game size limits are going to be increased from 150 megabytes to 350 in order to build upon the service's success. But in order to accommodate the increased game sizes, Whitten said Microsoft will be "delisting" unpopular games.

"The way it will work is that the title will need to be at least six months old and have a Metacritic score below 65 and a conversion rate below six percent on the service," he said. "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 catalog more on larger, more immersive games and make it much easier to find the games you are looking for."

"We have heard from some of our developers that if they had as much as 350 mb of space they could create some really amazing games," Whitten said. "So we don't want anything to hold these guys back."

Along with increasing the game size limits, Whitten said developers would also be given increased flexibility in pricing their games, and that a new 1600 Microsoft Points price level will also be implemented for some of the heftier new games. "This week we already have seen a title that is taking advantage of this and getting great response, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One," he said. Whitten added that while Microsoft is not planning a spring dashboard update comparable to the one released in May last year, there are plans to release a new digital rights management tool which he said "will allow you to better consolidate your licenses for downloaded content into a single Xbox and allow you the freedom to be able to play your content both online and offline."

Next-Gen's complete interview with Marc Whitten is available here.

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My only problem with the 1600 Microsoft Points cost is that...that's more than downloading a full X-Box game. Slightly pricy, in my eyes. However, I do like the way they are going about this, to ensure cult classics won't be removed. +10 for removing games rationally, -10 for the increased prices.

thebobmaster:
My only problem with the 1600 Microsoft Points cost is that...that's more than downloading a full X-Box game. Slightly pricy, in my eyes. However, I do like the way they are going about this, to ensure cult classics won't be removed. +10 for removing games rationally, -10 for the increased prices.

Well, there are larger and larger games being released on XBLA (Se Penny Arcade) so the increase in price might be well motivated.

sammyfreak:

thebobmaster:
My only problem with the 1600 Microsoft Points cost is that...that's more than downloading a full X-Box game. Slightly pricy, in my eyes. However, I do like the way they are going about this, to ensure cult classics won't be removed. +10 for removing games rationally, -10 for the increased prices.

Well, there are larger and larger games being released on XBLA (Se Penny Arcade) so the increase in price might be well motivated.

But some of those X-Box games are 4+ GB. I doubt any XBLA games are even 1 GB.

thebobmaster:
But some of those X-Box games are 4+ GB. I doubt any XBLA games are even 1 GB.

Yeah, but those Xbox games' development costs have already been paid for in the main through their initial sales runs... PA's title is brand new, though, so it's still trying to pay off those costs. The same goes for any new XBLA title, or any title that needed a lot of work to port over to the 360.

-- Steve

True, but still...it just irks me.

thebobmaster:
My only problem with the 1600 Microsoft Points cost is that...that's more than downloading a full X-Box game.

If the game is worth the price, I don't mind them expanding their limits. It's no different than releasing the Oblivion expansion for download. In the end, if the game is priced too high, it's going to get fewer sales, and they'll end up lowering the price.

My only question is what happens for the people that purchased a delisted game. Will they still be able to download the game again even though it's no longer offered for sale? Even a game with relatively poor reviews and slow sales will have fans.

I don't see why they need to remove any xbla content. Is microsoft running low on server capacity? Boo hoo.

thebobmaster:
My only problem with the 1600 Microsoft Points cost is that...that's more than downloading a full X-Box game. Slightly pricy, in my eyes. However, I do like the way they are going about this, to ensure cult classics won't be removed. +10 for removing games rationally, -10 for the increased prices.

Im fine with 1600 points, just so long as the game is worth it, ie above average graphics/play time, it should defintly be used for games that are close to full 360 games though.

Delisting games seems like a good idea with the current system of having one big long list, eventually it would be a nightmare to trawl through the lot.

Seems like a knee-jerk reaction on Microsoft's part. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of other ways to organize the games and make sure the quality titles are prominent and easy to access. This is a terrible idea on their part. I'll be surprised if this actually goes through.

Echolocating:
Seems like a knee-jerk reaction on Microsoft's part. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of other ways to organize the games and make sure the quality titles are prominent and easy to access. This is a terrible idea on their part. I'll be surprised if this actually goes through.

I dunno... did you see how hard it is to get booted? All of the following conditions must apply:

- out longer than 6 months (it's not picking on new titles)
- Metacritic score of 65 or lower (it's not picking on cult classics)
- less than 6% of trials result in full downloads (it's not picking on titles that've been overlooked)

In other words, in order to get cut the title has to be a real dud... and even then, they'll give you 3 months notice before pulling the plug. It actually sounds reasonably fair to me.

-- Steve

Echolocating:
I'm pretty sure there are a lot of other ways to organize the games and make sure the quality titles are prominent and easy to access.

+1

Besides, getting rid of the "less good" games raises the validity of XBLA overall.

Quality controll!

Anton P. Nym:
I dunno... did you see how hard it is to get booted?

I'm not arguing the difficulty of getting booted from the list. I'm saying that they don't have to remove any titles, that their solution is the laziest one I can imagine. What they should do is just use that criteria they came up with to justify what's on the main list of games, but still allow customers to access games that didn't fair so well with the general public.

Well, if the game is good, I don't mind paying a little extra (I'm Australia, so I'm getting ripped for my games regardless). And as for the removal of games, well, it makes sense from a business stand-point. Remember, in the end, it's all about the money.

This plan is obviously designed by the Kilobyte Conservation Committee.

Echolocating is right. I'm pretty sure there are more videos on YouTube than there are games in XBLA...now granted, while XBox Live is populated entirely by 14 year old potty mouths (as I understand things), I'm sure there's a more restrained subset of the population that can be trusted to tag, rate, and comment on XBLA offerings, much like YouTube users do with videos.

So, when presented with an unwieldy game list, MS' answer is not to improve the navigation and selection process, but rather to delist. Way to innovate, boys.

Echolocating:

Anton P. Nym:
I dunno... did you see how hard it is to get booted?

I'm not arguing the difficulty of getting booted from the list. I'm saying that they don't have to remove any titles, that their solution is the laziest one I can imagine. What they should do is just use that criteria they came up with to justify what's on the main list of games, but still allow customers to access games that didn't fair so well with the general public.

I concur. They really need to create meaningful sections within XBLA, and easy ways to sort games, upon certain criteria, which would be stored in your profile.
It would be like looking for a server to play on.

Let's see (order is irrelevant)...

- Age (is it fresh or not?), so you get the new stuff on top of the list. Or the reverse, if you want the oldest stuff. You could even set the age bar yourself.
- Scores. The games which get the best reviews.
- Most people playing.
- Solo/Mp. Pretty obvious.
- Price.
- Retro, is it an update of an old title, with shinier graphics and eventually a few fonctions added here and there (Bionic Commando). If it's not, then it's reasonnably new (I say this because there are shameful "new" games which are nothing more than old mechanics with a new paint job).
- Offers, promotions: special productions part of given promotion campaigns.
- Name. Yes, an alphabetical sorting is still good.
- Size.
- Genre.
- Studio.

And more. Now, I think this has been a decision took as a response to some unspoken opinion that grows on the internet, about how there's shovelware on XBLA.
Globally, it decreases the image of the service (on the same hand, to bad if you planned to invest in a game which the plebe has thumbed down).
It may also free some slots for newer games (and I feel concerned here - ahem).

A system like XBLA should be accessible to all developers. The "infinite shelf space" and "long tail" and other such modern dreams haven't yet died; Microsoft has simply failed to make XBLA into a business structure capable of efficiently bringing games and players to each other. Delisting underperforming games is a stopgap measure designed to make the shelf smaller, when what they need is a way for people to be directed to a smaller section of the shelf.