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[Guesclin]

Games mysteriously disappear from the Xbox Store, including Kena: Bridge of Spirits

A mysterious phenomenon recently struck the Xbox Store in Europe, causing some 30 games to be deleted without any official explanation for several weeks.

This phenomenon could be linked to a number of factors, including technical problems or licensing issues.
However, the disappearance of the Tenderfoot Tactics game seems to be linked to a broader political movement: the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement.
Launched in 2005, this movement campaigns for the boycott of companies with economic ties to Israel, and recently called for a boycott of Microsoft and Xbox because of their contracts with the Israeli army.

As part of this campaign, a number of developers have voluntarily withdrawn their games from the Xbox Store in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, increasing the pressure on Microsoft.
This wave of game removals is a reminder of the challenges of the all-digital world and the importance of preserving access to games, even after they have been withdrawn from the market.
Pending official clarification, European gamers are keeping a close eye on the situation, hoping for a swift reappearance of the titles that have disappeared.

Spoiler: List of games no longer available on Xbox

Abo Khashem
Alder's Blood: Definitive Edition
Cats and the Other Lives
Creepy Tale
Creepy Tale 2
Destropolis
Exorder
Flippin Kaktus
Grim Dawn: Definitive Edition
Gylt
House
Hyper Light Drifter
Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Mundaun
One True Hero
Ooblets
Paper Dolls Original
Primal Light
Quest Hunter
REKT! High Octane Stunts
Song of the Deep
Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion: HD Renovation
Steve Jackson's Sorcery!
Strike Force Kitty
SuperMash
Super Meat Boy Forever
Will You Snail?

@xboxlivefr

 

[TintoConCasera]

Grim Dawn: Definitive Edition

Hyper Light Drifter

Those are some big loses for the xbros, those two games are pretty cool.

 

[acm2000]

Kena available here in uk

 

[DenchDeckard]

That sucks!

More politics in gaming.

 

[rofif]

Sucks. Still way better than pure digital.
Not tied to account.
Can buy sell freely and not wait for discounts.
Maybe works offline after installing

 

[ReyBrujo]

A game key disc, talk about adopting ideas quickly.
Man, these soulless physical hurt my gaming spirit. It's the future, but they hurt it nevertheless.

 

[Guesclin]

Kena available here in uk

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Just checked on the French Xbox Store. Kena Bridge of Sprits is indeed not purchasable anymore, although it's available for purchase in the UK store. I wonder what's happening?

 

[64gigabyteram]

Xbox is in such a bad state that now instead of merely not getting games, it's losing them.

 

[Horseganador]

They have a 100GB UHD Blu-ray at their disposal and they only put 85MB in it, Xbox accelerating the death of the physical format with these "Key Disc"

 

[poppabk]

Xbox is in such a bad state that now instead of merely not getting games, it's losing them.

Gamepass loses and gains games all the time. It's just in this case it wasn't announced ahead of time as it is likely because of politics and at the game makers behest.

 

[Duchess]

I imagine the de-listing of games on the Xbox store is just a glitch. They'll be back later.

(by the way, Kena is excellent - go play it!)

 

[adamsapple]

Just checked on the French Xbox Store. Kena Bridge of Sprits is indeed not purchasable anymore, although it's available for purchase in the UK store. I wonder what's happening?

Probably some regional licensing issue. Hopefully gets resolved soon.

 

[Mr Moose]

What's the point in a disc if there's fuck all on it? Retarded.

I don't think those games being removed would be a license thing all at the same time, would it?

 

[64gigabyteram]

Gamepass loses and gains games all the time. It's just in this case it wasn't announced ahead of time as it is likely because of politics and at the game makers behest.

It's not just losing games from gamepass. Literal games are dropping off the Xbox store. Some of them digital only. For all intents and purposes that is losing games.

But also, I was making a joke. this is probably a mistake that will be corrected in due time.

 

[Kacho]

Probably some regional licensing issue. Hopefully gets resolved soon.

Grim Dawn, Hyper Light and Kena are still available for purchase on the US store.

 

[adamsapple]

Grim Dawn, Hyper Light and Kena are still available for purchase on the US store.

Seems to only be effecting some EU countries.

 

[Baemono]

Just checked on the French Xbox Store. Kena Bridge of Sprits is indeed not purchasable anymore, although it's available for purchase in the UK store. I wonder what's happening?

That was the best deal ever with the UK Trump was mentioning

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

This could be nothing.

Or could signal that licensing fees are higher than potential sales. Especially in Europe, where platform is effectively dead.

 

[RagnarokIV]

There's so much going on in this thread/title that I'm stressing out just reading it man

 

[Cakeboxer]

Who found this out? I thought Xbox users don't buy games.

 

[Gambit2483]

Xbox is determined that if they can't have their games exclusive then you can't have them physical.

What a fucking petty dick move.

 

[saintjules]

A game key disc, talk about adopting ideas quickly.
Man, these soulless physical hurt my gaming spirit. It's the future, but they hurt it nevertheless.

We're doomed!

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Sony bought Ember Lab? idk, buy Kena while you still can. Great stuff.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Gamepass loses and gains games all the time. It's just in this case it wasn't announced ahead of time as it is likely because of politics and at the game makers behest.

Why are you talking about game pass?

 

[poppabk]

Why are you talking about game pass?

Didn't realize they were removed completely from the store. Weird.

 

[Esppiral]

And nothing of value was lost.

 

[LordCBH]

But daddy Phil said he believes in preservation and physical games

 

[xrnzaaas]

Fuck off with another cheaply made (and highly priced) physical release. You're a trillion dollar company, you can afford to manufacture copies on 100 gig discs.

 

[Quezacolt]

A game key disc, talk about adopting ideas quickly.
Man, these soulless physical hurt my gaming spirit. It's the future, but they hurt it nevertheless.

Microsoft has been doing this for ages. Hell, basically all the games they released on xbox series consoles have been like this. A disc with very little data.

 

[Black_Stride]

Sony bought Ember Lab? idk, buy Kena while you still can. Great stuff.

Almost certainly NOT.
Its either some political shit or an error as the game still appears on other stores.

Also weirdly Ember Labs security cert expired......id think company auto renew that shit.....is the company even still active?

 

[CrustyBritches]

Seems like the the only way to get a truly physical copy of a game in the future is GoG or a cracked backup.

 

[CrimsonTide]

85mb is extremely large for a video game

OG Doom is only 2.39mb

This is MASSIVE! Holy hell! my 250MB HDD is ready baby!

 

[Gambit2483]

Seems like the the only way to get a truly physical copy of a Xbox game in the future is GoG or a cracked backup.

Fixed.

 

[CrustyBritches]

Fixed.

Does the PS5 version come complete on disc?

 

[Gambit2483]

Does the PS5 version come complete on disc?

Apologies, by "Xbox" I mean MS published/owned

 

[CrustyBritches]

Apologies, by "Xbox" I mean MS published/owned

Got my hopes up for a second there.

 

[Radical_3d]

Xbox in Europe.

 

[Gamezone]

This is why left consoles for PC. Collecting physical media was the only thing worth while that was left.

 

[DirtyBast8rd]

This is why left consoles for PC. Collecting physical media was the only thing worth while that was left.

This, and I wasn't getting stuck in a console ecosystem waiting to be f'ed whenever the corporations feel like it.

 

[Kilau]

I had to look up tenderfoot, fuck these morons.

"We hope that Microsoft will listen to the voices of their workers and customers and stop all business with the criminal Israeli military, which we have watched conduct an open genocide in Gaza over the last 18 months," said the developer in a statement posted on Bluesky.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Imagine a game being delisted because one of the world's government runs Windows.

 

[Astray]

The 27 games thing is mad weird. I saw it a few days ago and thought it was some glitch that would be fixed by the time a thread is up.

The Doom game disc being a coaster is just classic Microsoft at this point. This Xbox management has really been an absolute net negative to game preservation, at least other companies don't constantly talk up how committed they are to preservation when they are actively destroying it like this.

 

[Drew1440]

I really hope Microsoft have developed an impressive compression algorithm to compress a AAA game into 85MB

 

[mckmas8808]

This is why left consoles for PC. Collecting physical media was the only thing worth while that was left.

Microsoft realizes this too about people like yourself.

 

[Gamezone]

This, and I wasn't getting stuck in a console ecosystem waiting to be f'ed whenever the corporations feel like it.

Yeah, who knows what will happen to people's digital Xbox games if their "everything is an Xbox" thing doesn't work out. On PC they have a crap store, and is up against Steam.

 

[Windle Poons]

They have a 100GB UHD Blu-ray at their disposal and they only put 85MB in it, Xbox accelerating the death of the physical format with these "Key Disc"

It's probably a CDR

 

[Esppiral]

They have a 100GB UHD Blu-ray at their disposal and they only put 85MB in it, Xbox accelerating the death of the physical format with these "Key Disc"

As is Nintendo with the card keys or whatever they are called, let's not pretend this is a MS only thing.

 

[Thebonehead]

85mb is extremely large for a video game

OG Doom is only 2.39mb

This is MASSIVE! Holy hell! my 250MB HDD is ready baby!

I bought an 80mb drive for around £300 back in the day. I could only dream of 250MB. No idea what I could have done with all that space.

 

[mrqs]

Honestly, who the hell cares? The game is out on PC. Even if it's removed everywhere, it'll still be available one way or another. I really don't understand the big deal.

I understand that some people might not have the best internet, but back in the day I was spending multiple days downloading random MMORPGS I wanted to play.

People will be able to handle it.

Or am I seeing this whole situation the wrong way?