Seal

Marc Whitten, General Manager of Xbox Live, gives away first details of big changes to the service in an exclusive interview with Next Generation. The two main headlines are that

• there will be no spring dashboard update,
• underperforming Xblox Live Arcade (XBLA) titles will be removed,
• changes to the DRM policy, and
• a tool will be released to fix the issue that forced gamers playing XBLA games to be connected to Xbox LIVE if their 360 console was replaced.

Instead of pushing for a spring dashboard update - you might compare it with a Windows Service Pack (SP) - focus lies on “building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service"; whatever that means.

Underperforming XBLA titles will be eligible for removal from the titles list with a 3 months notice if

• they have been out for more than 6 months,
• have a Metacritic score of less than 65%, and
• have a conversion rate of less than 6%.

[Read the complete interview]