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.
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.