Microsoft skipping Spring Update, fixing DRM, looking at delisting under-performing XBLA titles

by: Chuck - posted: 5/22/2008 4:24:00 PM

In a wide-ranging ranging interview with Next-Gen magazine Marc Whitten, the GM of of Xbox Live, dishes out a few quality nuggets of information.  The biggest is that Microsoft will not be releasing a spring update this year and instead will be focusing on building up the infrastructure of the service. 

It's also revealed that Microsoft will be looking at removing older Xbox Live titles that aren't popular with the critics and with gamers.  This makes sense as it helps reduce the clutter on the service and reduces the overhead of having to pass data on bad games back and forth from the service.  There's a long lead time on this so it's going to be a while before the stains of bad purchases is removed from your Xbox 360. 

The final bit of good news is that MS will be releasing a new tool that will allow you to transfer the license of games and content to a new Xbox 360 one time, allowing you to play the games when you are offline.  This will certainly be a boon to those who have suffered the dreaded RROD and are dealing with the wonderful DRM that Microsoft has placed in the games.

There's also a bit about a new first party studio that Microsoft has created to supply Xbox Live with content.  I'm interested to see what comes out of this studio and if they go out and buy a few smalltime indie publishers to create games exclusively for the platform.