Not much to report this week – I was away for work, then returned to finish off the US version of No More Heroes. I then started work on a “full” NMH post, and it’s turned into a monster. Still working on it. It may be awhile, but there’s some goodies attached to it that’ll make it worth the wait. Maybe ;)
One thing I forgot to mention last week was the acquisition of Wii Fit. Even though I’m a tubby bugger (or, as Wii Fit so delicately stated, “Obese”), this wasn’t bought through some desperate need to get into shape through the power of video games; no, it was because the Namco We Ski game (which is supposed to leverage the balance board) looked bloody fantastic. Luckily, Wii Fit‘s own skiing games are also great fun; haven’t really done much else with it, though.
The big news of the week, however, is the announcement from Microsoft that they’re going to de-list games on XBLA, thus making them unavailable for further sales (though they may be downloaded again by those who have already purchased them, if necessary); GamerscoreBlog has the nitty gritty, as well as a decent selection of outraged comments. The shitstorm continues over at Wired. This strikes me as being an astonishingly short-sighted and misguided decision, which removes the Long Tail opportunities availed by online distribution. Given the monies paid to Microsoft (in terms of certification costs, as well as royalty rates on XBLA sales), the least they could do is provide perpetual support for sales! Instead, Microsoft seem to be pretending that the issue with being “unable to find” games is due to too many games on the service – a problem which I think PSN would love to have.
If it’s difficult to find games on XBLA, then surely Microsoft should clean up the interface, no? At least, that’s what the majority of commenters around the interweb seem to think (although, to be honest, I’m surprised at the number of people who think that de-listing is a good idea… mind you, they use brick-and-mortar stores to support their arguments). But what’s the chance that Microsoft will listen to the complainers?
As I mentioned on the GamerscoreBlog comments, the poignant thing for me is that Space Giraffe – one of my favourite games from last year – only missed out on one of the criteria for de-listing… by three percent on MetaCritic. A quick peek at other MetaCritic “failures” indicate that Robotron is in danger of de-listing – depending, of course, on the (rather arbitrary) 6% conversion rate, of which many questions remain unanswered (eg, the influence of automatic downloads). Harrumph.