In an exclusive interview with Next Generation, Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten announced the rather disappointing news that they will not be releasing a Spring update this year. This of course means that the rumored Spring update feature set that was leaked last week was complete bologna. Whitten says that instead of putting their resources into a Spring update, they decided to focus their energy into "building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service" (ahem, more reliability). But all is not lost in the land of updates, as Whitten confirmed Microsoft will be rolling out a change to their DRM policy in June that'll allow content owners to re-license XBLA and XBLM content to a single console. This move will make said content available when disconnected from Xbox Live.Finally, we learn that the Xbox Live Arcade will get a metaphorical Spring cleaning as Microsoft plans to remove under-performing Arcade titles. Games that have been on the market for over six months, have a Metacritic average lower than 65% and a conversion rate below 6% will be targeted for de-listing. A move that Microsoft hopes will streamline the service and open it up to bigger and better things.
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 5)
5-23-2008 @ 11:14AM
ccc said...
Well, To start I'll have to say no Spring Dashboard update blows.
Delisting games is a massive mistake, maybe even a bigger mistake than the Xbox Originals program.
I am definatly more for cutting the prices on those games and dumping them somewhere like the arcade hits section. Find some other way to make the service smoother MS.
For the current users, there may be games they have been meaning to get, but have been putting off, thinking they would always be there.
For someone that already has some of these games, one way or the other, delisting them is going to be a nightmare, either on this console or the next.
These are MY games and I bought them.
These games have no physical form what-so-ever.
As far as I am conserned MS needs to ALWAYS provide a way that I can redownload these titles now and until the end of thier existence.
Which isn't going to be too far off in the cosole industry if they don't stop making dumbass choices.
What MS is doing in thier choice making process is comparable to shooting yourself in the foot, digging your own grave, locking your keys in the car, just fucking themselves.
Reply
5-23-2008 @ 12:02PM
Eric said...
You cannot tell me that a team, of who know how many people, in six months time could only fix the DRM issue. They should have given us something, anything.
And the whole thing about removing XBLA games is stupid but i know why they are doing it.
Next weeks PRESS RELEASE:
"We at Microsoft only have high quality games on XBLA, 100% games of games available in XBLA have a meta critic rating of 65% or higher and not only that but they sell really well."
Reply
5-23-2008 @ 12:02PM
Chuck said...
So very very disapointing...
Reply
5-23-2008 @ 1:55PM
Mark said...
Did anyone actually RTFA? What's written here (and elsewhere) is a misinterpretation of what was originally said by Whitten in the interview. Here's the exact quote:
"We have taken a different approach this spring and spent a lot of our time and resources of building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service not just today but also into the future. So while most users will not notice any significant changes to the dashboard this spring, I can tell you that the team will be releasing a new digital rights management (DRM) tool next month that will allow you to better consolidate your licenses for downloaded content to a single Xbox and allow you the freedom to be able to play your content both online and offline."
He definitely doesn't say there won't be a spring update, but rather they are taking a different approach. What was going around the 'net with regard to feature updates were rumors and could have come from anywhere. Who knows what will actually be included in the update.
Reply
5-23-2008 @ 7:34PM
Alex C. said...
fuck you, microsoft.
Reply
5-26-2008 @ 10:52AM
David said...
I asked MrPointyHead about it! He didn't confirm or deny it! So there still may be an update!
Reply