No Spring Dash Update For 2008

Next Gen posted an interview with the general manager of Xbox Live – Mark Whitten. During the interview, details with regards to the XBLA and Spring Update were discussed, with the major points bulleted below…

• No Spring Dashboard update in 2008
• A new tool to fix DRM issues (to be released in June on Xbox.com)
• Delisting unpopular XBLA games (according to Metacritic scores)
• Increased XBLA game size limits from 150mb to 350mb
• New Microsoft 1st party studio focused on high quality digital content creation.

While we are happy to see an increase in the XBLA size limit, and a tool that can finally fix the dreaded DRM problem, we can’t help but think that removing old games off of XBLA isn’t going to be a wise decision in the long run. In this day and age, where digital distribution looks to replace hard bound copies and disks, we just feel like someone is going to end up losing out.

Given the notorious history of the Xbox 360 and it needing repairs, just out of curiosity, how many of you have needed to redownload content off Xbox Live?

Until we have a solution in place that can make sure people can play what they want, I am against removing any of the XBLA titles off the network.

Instead, what the Xbox 360 needs, at least in this editor’s opinion, is a blade that is dedicated to the XBLA. With updates, and upgrades coming on a per Wednesday basis, I honestly feel like a new blade that can properly market the good games, the popular games, and games made for a specific audience would be more beneficial for every party involved. The gamer gets to see and play what they like, Microsoft gets to profit off of a revamped XBLA page, and no companies are pissed for having a game pulled off the network. With the current trend of DLC, and leaderboards, wouldn’t that prove to be a better solution for dealing with the expanding Xbox Live Arcade?

I am not saying that I enjoy playing every XBLA game, but at times, loading up Frogger for a change of pace is enjoyable, and think that we as the gamer should be able to make the choice for what game we want to play, before Microsoft attempts to make that choice for us. I mean, if a game is really that bad, give the game a price reduction – wasn’t that the point of having sales on some of the XBLA titles?

If I am a company attempting to make games exclusively for the Xbox 360, and my game gets pulled due to poor advertising, or high price point, then why would I want to work with Microsoft again, especially while some games get special treatment for one reason or another (Undertow comes to mind, despite the fact that I enjoyed the game before it was a free gift).

Either way, as one anonymous developer told 360Sync exclusively, “I feel Microsoft is eliminating creativity and innovation with these changes.  Now the only guaranteed titles are half-assed ports that take no risk and no effort.”