Report: Microsoft to remove duds from Live Arcade

In November, Xbox Live Arcade product manager Jeremy Wacksman told GameSpot that Microsoft had no plans to cull the constantly growing catalog of games available on the Xbox 360's digital distribution service.

Plans have apparently changed. Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten has told trade site Next-Gen in an interview that Microsoft would be "delisting" underperforming games. To become a potential candidate, a game would need to have an average Metacritic score below 65, be at least six months old, and have a conversion rate (the percentage of demo downloaders who go on to buy the full product) of less than 6 percent. Microsoft will also give a three-month heads-up when it plans to yank a game from the service.

That isn't the only change in the works, according to Whitten. The size limit for games is going up from 150MB to 350MB, and in lieu of a spring dashboard update, Microsoft is instead addressing a common complaint regarding digital-rights management (DRM) on Live Arcade games. Next month, Microsoft will release a tool that lets users consolidate all of their purchases onto their most current console.

At the moment, Live Arcade games are tied to the console on which they were purchased, so if a customer needs to replace that system or buys a new one, previously purchased Live games will only work if the user is logged onto Xbox Live with the GamerTag that originally purchased them.

Finally, Microsoft will be starting up a first-party studio devoted to developing exclusive Xbox Live Arcade games. As of press time, Microsoft representatives had not responded to GameSpot's inquiries on the subject.