Xbox Live is going through some changes. Some might call them growing pains, with an increased file size on Xbox Live Arcade titles and a higher, 1600 Microsoft Point price cap for bigger titles. General manager of Xbox Live Marc Whitten says in an interview with Next-Gen that even more changes are coming. In addition to a "new fully funded 1st party studio which will be focused on high quality digital content creation," Microsoft will begin wiping the "shit" from Live, de-listing titles that underperform with critics and gamers.
According to Whitten, any title that is six months old, with an average Metacritic score below 65 and a demo-to-full conversion ratio below 6%, will be pulled from the service. Concerned parties will be notified three months in advance if a title is going to be pulled.
That means titles like Cyberball 2072 and Arkadian Warriors may be on their way out, depending on when Microsoft plans to start taking out the trash. We're a bit confused as to why MS would choose to pull the titles outright instead of implementing other methods for showcasing more well received titles and we have little insight into conversion ratios, but Whitten hopes that "Overall I think you will find this will focus the catalogue more on larger, more immersive games and make it much easier to find the games you are looking for."
The Xbox Live GM also reveals that we won't see a Spring dashboard update like we did last year, but that Microsoft still has plans for new features. One of those is a new DRM tool "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" according to Whitten.
Maybe that list of rumored updates we heard about earlier this month won't be coming for a long time (if ever).
MS To Delist XBLA Titles [Next-Gen]