• dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    70
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • SavvyWolf@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      1 year ago

      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…