If you’re not intending to sell them for profit any more, then just let us download and emulate them.
It’s not a hard problem.
Well, it is a bit harder than that. Most of the games are not mate by Microsoft but by other companies so they can’t just decide to give them away for free. And even if they could get everybody to agree to that, they would still need to provide the infrastructure to download them which would be just as much work as keeping the old store running.
Yeah, fair. But they can do it for first party games and maybe try to convince other publishers to do the same.
With the infrastructure cost, I don’t think a simple site that allows downloads yet doesn’t need logins or payment info would break the bank, especially for Microsoft. But if it is an issue, they could probably only run it for a few months and let fans set up their own mirrors.
Or Microsoft could even do what GoG does. Charge a token ($5-10) fee to purchase a ROM to download to cover costs. Also might make it more appealing to other publishers since some money is better than no money.
There a lot of consumer friendly solutions to this issue, but I bet the outcome will end up being $70 compilations or remakes…
The first party games are pretty much already available as MS brought them to S/X back cat already. Only things missing are stuff like Forza where the car and music lisences expire. They’re not the games that are an issue preservation wise.
heads begin exploding at Nindento HQ
It’s not even their company and just the suggestion here has their legal teams on high alert and ready.
I avoid using their actual name so I don’t get an automated cease and desist in the post
You really thing not referencing them or making any content related to any of their IPs will prevent them from sending a C&D? They’d probably send one out to everyone if it didn’t cost them any money to do so. God forbid you hire some plumbers, wear a red shirt, or draw something in the shape of a star.
Who’s going to maintain that infrastructure of free old game downloads? Companies don’t like to work for little benefit. It’s way harder than you think.
Drop the ISOs on torrent, problem solved. No need to reinvent the wheel, just do what the pirates have been doing for decades at this point.
This problem was solved in the 90s with usenet and torrents
And BitTorrent is already used to distribute games! Blizzard uses BitTorrent to distribute WoW, for example.
Small correction, though - BitTorrent wasn’t released until 2001.
Blizzard uses BitTorrent to distribute WoW
they haven’t been using it for many years now
Hmm, I had trouble finding official confirmation of that but did find a HN comment by scrollaway on this post who said they use “a proprietary http-based protocol called ngdp.” They also shared a document on the protocol and a commenter replied with a link to a deeper discussion of other ways to solve similar game patching distribution problems (amusingly, scrollaway also participated in that discussion).
Isn’t some of the issue there that just because they don’t have plans now doesn’t preclude them from deciding down the line to do something? If they release that all for free then later ports or things of that nature directly lose value.
Companies that don’t actively market/license their IP should lose it fairly quickly and be required to release it to the public domain.
I’d agree with that, there should be a stricter standard on that stuff across the board with media.
Do you not understand how IP we works? MS publish a minimal amount of the actual titles on the 360, the remainder belong to third party publishers that woukd never agree to this. MS have already tried to bring the whole 360 catalogue to the S/X back cat but can’t get a lot of these publishers to sign off on the adaptations needed to get them running.
“I wish we could find a solution to the problem we’re going to cause” says the person causing the problem in the first place.
it used to be the case that when you weren’t able to enforce DRM on a piece of software anymore, you would offer it as a free download so people who bought it wouldn’t lose it
thinking about photoshop CS2 for instance, they offered the download and some keys that would work on it
But then it quit working on 64bit.
they don’t have to keep supporting, just not make it unavailable the best case would be if they made it open source, in that case other people could keep maintaining it, but would be against their profit incentives
If adobe made their best selling product open source?
Then the world would be a better place and it would likely use less RAM
Image processing uses huge amounts of RAM. Regardless of who makes the software.
GIMP is best RAM!!! 🤪
“I really hope we can find a way to prevent ourselves from shooting ourselves in the foot”
loads gun
“We are open to solutions…”
cocks gun
Either open source it, lead an effort to create a way for everything to be emulateable involving the players/fans/supporters in it or port everything for another platform.
and don’t even think about charge a single cent again; it’s your part planning to deprive people from the store.
Microsoft should make all of their Microsoft studio games available that they no longer want to host, but they can’t force other studios to do the same anymore than Valve can force studios to do a sale/give away games on steam.
Legally they can’t do it, but we need a legal solution for the quick obsolescence of digital media. Digital media can’t be reasonably expected to last “120 years from the date of creation” like books can. By then not only servers are sure to be down, but every single XBox 360 will have turned into piles of rust. Even movies struggle to last this long.
The key thing is, their license model and walled garden policies are what created the problem. Wringing their hands when something they knew would happen happens isn’t admirable.
Oh no doubt. Believe me I have no sympathy for M$. I’m just reiterating the fact that it’s not as simple as it sounds, even if it’s because of their own decisions lol
They way it was written passed me the impression the titles were all MS proprietary.
Aside from games where the lisences have expired like Forza, most first party games are back cat on the series S/X aren’t they?
The list of backwards compatible 360 games is pretty lengthy but it is not 100% covered
First party are largely covered though right. It’s third party they can’t get the rights to repackage that cause the issue.
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I doubt they have the sources for the games they distribute
Don’t forget the games that were already pulled. This includes every Valve game that isn’t Portal: Still Alive (which is arguably a better version of the game than the version that came with the now-delisted Orange Box but whatever) and Portal 2, as well as other major titles like Skate 2 and Jet Set Radio.
Microsoft has the money to figure this out, they just don’t actually care enough to. I mean for fuck’s sake, they own Bethesda and we still can’t even play Quake 4 on modern Xboxes. What’s the excuse there, Phil?
After years of dealing with his PR statements one after another, I just switched back to PlayStation for the first time since around 2015 since they don’t yank my chain about features. I still think they’ve put less effort and freedom into their platform, but they never say something positive like this and then just forget about it.
Xbox boss “would love to find solutions” so games keep being profitable even after they’re no longer being sold.
My sensei in Sheogorath, your DRM is the reason those games are being lost!
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Hear me out: let these games be downloaded in a GOG style executable accepted by homebrew game launchers if they exist!
Phil, dressed in a hot dog suit: “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this”
Im sure this is a dumb take, but can they just open source the 360? Then they are not giving away games they are not allowed to.
Not a dumb take at all, it’d be awesome if they did. Unfortunately there are likely contracts or business reasons preventing them from doing so, or code shared between the 360 and current gens that they want to keep proprietary. Still, with MS open sourcing more and more projects over time, I’d love to see it.
Still, not sure how that’d solve the store shutting down
If the goal is game preservation, the idea would be the community would preserve them for you. We would likely have highly usuable emualtors within a short time.
Upload them online, Microsoft.
Don’t think they would have the rights to. They could sell it but making it available freely when it isn’t their IP would be a can of worms.
The final solution 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
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The server stay online for downloading game. I don’t really get it. If you close only the store, but keep the server for downloading online, do they safe like that so much money?
If they have dedicated servers per region that handle payment processing, and they would need to be upgraded in order to be compatible with currently supported OSes, yes. Or if just maintenance costs for keeping them online are high enough.
Or if they have to pay an annual fee to continue selling (but not distributing) the games.
Or if the annual base costs for the payment provider exceed their revenue.
