A few days back, Microsoft announced that unpopular and poorly-performing games are set for deletion from the Xbox Live Arcade service. Well, actually, they’re going to be de-listed – people who have already downloaded them will be able to re-download, and people who have the demos will be able to upgrade to the full versions. Which kinda makes me wonder what the point of this whole exercise is.

Anyway, Microsoft have specified that games over 6 months old, with a Metacritic score of less than 65%, and a poor conversion rate (users buying the full game after downloading the demo) will be included in the de-listing programme. While the world at large doesn’t have access to the conversion figures, we do know the ages and review scores of the games, and so a list of potential candidates for deletion could be put together. Which is exactly what the resourceful people at MyGen, an Australian games site, have done.

Here’s the list of potential candidates in full. Remember, some of these could have good conversion rates (I’m thinking a lot of the old arcade titles), so this list is by no means definitive:

Crystal Quest
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Hardwood Hearts
Texas Hold ‘em
Fatal Fury Special
Contra
Marathon: Durandal
Missile Command
Time Pilot
Track & Field
Hardwood Backgammon
Hardwood Spades
Pac-Man
Frogger
Mad Tracks
Root Beer Tapper
Super Contra
Geon: Emotions
Soltrio Solitaire
Arkadian Warriors
Rush’n Attack
Defender
Double Dragon
Xevious
Gyruss
Asteroids / Asteroids Deluxe
Battlestar Galactica
Centipede & Millipede
Spyglass Board Games
Tetris Splash
Ecco the Dolphin
Yie Ar Kung-Fu
Wing Commander Arena
Novadrome
Shrek-N-Roll
Scramble
Tempest
Street Trace: NYC
Word Puzzle
New Rally-X
Cyberball 2072
Screwjumper!

Personally, I think it’s an absolute crime that classics like Double Dragon, Speedball 2, and Marathon could be leaving us shortly. All Microsoft need to do to make the selection less confusion is to work on the interface and organise everything better, and keep these games available for a whole new generation of gamers.

Save our XBLA games!

(via)

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