No spring dashboard update for 360; new XBLA plans

M$ has told Gamasutra that there will be no spring dashboard update for the 360.

Additionally, they' re going to begin systematically delisting XBLA titles that have an average Metacritic score of under 65 and a low trial conversion rate (i.e., the demo is downloaded but 6% or fewer people buy it).

Microsoft representatives have confirmed to Gamasutra that the company plans to systematically delist underperforming Xbox Live Arcade titles, as well as to raise the size limit of Xbox Live Arcade games to 350 MB.

Microsoft also intends to open its own internal development team targeting downloadable comment, and along with those plans came news that Microsoft will not be releasing a spring dashboard update for the Xbox 360 console, as it has done in the past. Instead, the company says it will focus on improving backbone server issues.

Delisting of Xbox Live Arcade titles will be handled cautiously - only titles scoring below a 65 score average on Metacritic with a 6 percent or lower trial conversion rate will be delisted, and each will have a three month grace period.

According to a post at web forum NeoGAF, referencing an interview on business site Next-Gen.biz where the top-line information first appeared, some 45 Live Arcade titles currently score underneath 65 on Metacritic. Microsoft has never made per-title conversation rates public. It is also unclear whether users who have previously purchased delisted games will still have access to the games to re-download.

I just bumped eddie' s Spring update thread about this while you were posting in this new one. Sorry for the repeat information. Have you found any information on what they plan to due for the people who have purchased these titles, or if there are any current titles that meet this criteria?

No worries about the simul-post. I probably should have gone back to that thread anyway. I haven' t found much else about it. The Gamasutra article says that 45 titles meet the low Metacritic score criterion, but that M$ hasn' t released any sales conversion rate figures.

I imagine if you already have one of the titles that gets delisted, you' ll still be able to play it no problem. But what if you end up needing to get a new box, new harddrive, something along those lines, and lose the games you bought? I' m not sure why they would bother delisting them. I think they' d do better to make sure that they don' t release bad games to begin with.

So only popular games are supported from now on? That sucks. What if you happen to be one of the 6% that would have enjoyed the game?

Surely they can' t be running out of room on central servers to store these games or money to afford the bandwidth to keep them available. I guess its just business forcing sacrifice as usual.

I' m surprised they don' t try simply reducing the price of the poorly-performing games. Drop them down to 100 or 200 points and I' m sure that would drive some more sales. At least put them " on sale" for a little while.

It has to be bandwidth saving measures right, now they' re increasing the file size limit? Decreasing their prices might save them from the bottom of the sales chart, but M$ would find another excuse to axe a few games.

Whats the reasoning behind the file size limit anyway?

I think the reasoning is that arcade games are supposed to be quick, pickup and play type games. Downloading a 2GB arcade game is not exactly pickup and play.

Whats the reasoning behind the file size limit anyway?

The original limitation was Memory Unit size, for those thick enough to buy a Core. From there, it gradually increased as various titles pushed the cap (with Microsoft authorization, of course).

Now, I don' t really see the point. If two years into the consoles lifespan, you don' t have a HDD....