No automatic XBLA downloads for the NXE

by Richard Mitchell on Oct 29th 2008 5:10PM

During our extensive video tour of the New Xbox Experience, we managed to miss that an old feature has actually been removed. Specifically, we're talking about the ability to download all Xbox Live Arcade games automatically. We're not sure how many people actually use the feature, but for those that like to at least try every XBLA game (or those that started a weekly video series about XBLA), it was pretty handy. When MTV's Stephen Totilo asked Microsoft's John Schappert about the removal of the feature, Schappert replied, "You actually use that?"

While the reason why the feature has gone missing remains a mystery, Totilo was told "it may come back in a future release." We'll just have to wait an see. Get your own hands on the otherwise feature-packed NXE when it debuts next month.

Source

Tags: arcade, live-arcade, new-xbox-experience, nxe, xbla, xbox-live-arcade

Reader Comments (40)

I never used it largely because it made you go to the Games blade to even start downloading anything... At that point I might as well just do it myself.

I agree. The feature was usless before because u needed to enter the games blade for it to kick in. This means if you left your xbox off for 2 weeks, come back, not a single game would of been downloaded or queed up, forcing you to go find it regardless.

If they bring it back, they better make it so it works without having to go anywhere.

Also they need mroe then 6 queed up slots. If I go on vacation for a month, I dont want to come home and search for the 10-13 XBLA games I missed, I want them all queed up, ready to dl.

However with the XBLA in brief done by x3f, I find myself not even bothering to dl the demos anymore, as I watch the video first, if it looks interesting, THEN download the demo. Cuts down on the useless demos i dl and saves me time.

Now I just wish richard would do a short video review of every retail game like he does for the xbla games. Cause the gamespot video reviews are only for certain games, like the big AAA titles you know your gonna get and couldnt care less about being reviewd. Never the small game which has you slightly interested. Although im sure that would probably be a little more work. But im sure thats nothing a slight pay increase from AOL and free copy of all games wouldnt solve huh?

So that's the deal... I've had the feature on but noticed it wouldn't always start right away, now I know why, thanks.

I used it. I tend to forget new games come out on wednesdays.

I used it as well but I definitely agree with 007craft in that it should truly auto download, not require me to go to the games blade first.

Never used it myself, it always seemed like a redundant feature. Don't think many people will miss it.

I wont miss it. I forgot about it till this post.

To everyone who misses this feature there a little known feature in this site called XBLA IN breif.

Ditto.

"I" before "E" accept after "C"! with rare exceptions! brief is not one of them!!! :D

"I before E" is an awful rule. I found this site for you.

http://forum.dict.cc/?pagenum=2488&fo_show=89609

I used to use it, but then I got bored of playing demos of crappy, crappy games. Crazy Mouse anyone?

um, are you sure you stopped using it? Crazy Mouse came out like 2 weeks ago...

I have this feature turned on just because I like to try everything at least once.

I wish they didnt take the "All Games" feature from it. Used to go to random parties/friends houses and turn it on. It would start with A and download until it cant anymore. Filled my friends HD with arcade games... hahahahaha

Life - get one!

/sigh

I was losing space, and I dont really play the games anyways.

A few things that took up space for me were the Shadowrun and Halo Betas and the XNA Creator's club thingie that we downloaded last spring for the free demos (The Dishwasher was awesome). If you forgot about them that may free a few gigs. I'm mad now that I forgot to delete the XNA thing, it doesn't show up anymore with in NXE preview.

Netflix works great, though.

my guess is they took it off due to the fact that its a complete waste of bandwidth. understandable i guess. i do have the feature on, but don't usually bother to try half the games it downloads.

I never used this feature.If I didn't know that a game was coming out on Wednesday then chances are I wasn't interested enough in it to try the trial.

LOL!!!!
You 360tards get excited over everything!!
Even if it is just XMB on it's side, which would be pretty dumb and hard to navigate through(XMB on it's side I mean)

With language that that, you both are.

It's ok, guys. He's just sad that his PS3's market share is as small as his...Nevermind, let's just not feed the troll any longer.

I never use this feature anyway

Ten good features added, one bad feature removed.

win/win ?

This seems to have a pretty reasonably explanation to me. "Delisting"
It would be screwing up the real conversion rates if people are downloading every game, but deleting most without even trying them, because they never would have downloaded it if it were not for the 'Automatic Downloads'. BTW please tell me if I'm missing something that would make this wrong.

eh, you win. this is why - was going to say so but you beat it to it =)

well I used it

cause i didnt wanted to leave my XBox

turned on while I download 4 gigs demos

but i'm not going to miss it cause i will have a new interface

That's a different feature, this one relates to automatically downloading the new XBLA (arcade) releases on your behalf.

The feature you mean is where it will finish off any downloads whilst in standby.

I did use it when if first was implemented but didn't want all the crap games getting onto my system. So I turned it off and won't wish to ever see it again. But, I guess to be fair, it would of been cool to have the feature and people like me could just shut it off and not be bothered by it. So others that liked to play everything could keep it active.

But with NXE, you'll be able to just click on links in a web browser to have things added to your download queue and then automatically downloaded when you log in. This seems just about as easy to manage for 1-2 arcade games a week (not to mention all the other Marketplace goodness)

the likely reason for this is that it removes a key metric for xbla downloads, that is, "how many people actually download the game 'actively'" as opposed to 'automatically'. an actively downloaded game that does not go on to conversion is a statistic that could matter to MS and/or the vendor.

Well since the Arcade size limit has been utterly smashed by Portal Still Alive I think players will be glad that 500Mb demos won't be downloaded automatically!

I'll miss it!

I switched it on a few weeks back when we seemed to be getting decent stuff.. didn't seem to work so I switched it off.. won't be missed..
but 3 weeks for the Windows Media Center-esque dash.. thats a long wait.. Fable2 won't take much longer.. just gargoyles & keys to find & it's all done (oh, and demon doors!)
maybe the bland Infinitely Undiscovery will keep my attention til Gears 2....

I have never used the feature and I'm not exactly sure what it does but why don't they have a feature that allows you download all arcade trials, specific genres or even specific titles and they will automatically download when you turn on your Xbox and are connected to Live. The feature would be useful especially with background downloads after shut-off is turned on.

I turned it on when it first started but never used it. I like downloading things manually ever couple days anyway.

I use it, just because I work long days all week and I never remember to download the games. Seemed like a handy thing to have. I liked it.

I've always used this feature. It's an awesome thing to have, and often I forget which games are coming out each week. Then in the middle of another game, I see it has downloaded and might go play that.

I'm annoyed I didnt get to add all the XBLA games to my gamercard before they made that switch last year. Grr. That should be an option too.

I use it! I'm sure I'll buy less XBLA games if I have to manually look for them. I don't have a lot of time to look at websites for the new games that are coming out, and even if I do I probably won't remember to go download them. But if I'm playing something else and see the "Game XXX downloaded," I'll try it out. That's how I found Braid and Age of Booty.

Sucks that they took that feature out.

Oh well, I don't have time to try arcade games anyways... lol

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No automatic XBLA downloads for the NXE

Reader Comments (40)

Posted: Oct 29th 2008 5:24PM Softserve said

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