Fall Update won't erase all XBLA trials from history

by Dustin Burg { Nov 30th 2007 at 4:00PM }

Sad news fellow fanboys. We know you and pretty much the entire Fanboy community was excited to hear that the Fall Update would allow for deletion of XBLA game trials from your recently played history. But, according to the tech heads over at Xbox Team's blog, this deletion feature isn't what we thought it to be. Instead, the Fall Update will get "support to not write trial-version Arcade games to user's played games history (this is only for newly downloaded games after the Dec'07 update is released)". See the key words there? The 360 will not write XBLA trials to the games history after the update gets released, but anything prior to Tuesday's update is set in stone. So, no deletion option, it's just an enhancement that will stop future XBLA trial games from appearing on the your games played list. Sad ... we thought we were finally rid of our old XBLA trials.

[Thanks, xenocidic]

Tags: dashboard-update, fall-update, xbox-360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

xenocidic @ Nov 30th 2007 4:06PM

Hrm, didn't know you guys pulled news from comments =) Thanks for the credit.

yes, I'm a sad puppy!

Rukaribe @ Nov 30th 2007 4:11PM

This is completely useless. This one simple error ruins the whole aspect of comparing games.

rainking187 @ Nov 30th 2007 4:10PM

...is this a big deal? Are random people coming over and looking through your played list? "Dude, you were playing Hexic? What a tool."

Wilson @ Nov 30th 2007 4:13PM

It is for us people who care about game competition percentage.

Modeps @ Nov 30th 2007 4:11PM

On the official gamerscore blog, they have a video, and they clearly state that it will remove the demos at 3m45s.

Modeps @ Nov 30th 2007 4:22PM

Here's the direct link for you lazy people.
http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2007/11/30/554969.aspx

xenocidic @ Nov 30th 2007 4:37PM

I'd be inclined to believe the developers from msdn over the good folks at gamerscoreblog, but only time will tell.

and by time, I mean 4 days.

Modeps @ Nov 30th 2007 4:41PM

Well, here's the thing... its basically pointless for them to only not do it "from this point forward". Either you get rid of them all or don't bother.

xenocidic @ Dec 1st 2007 4:12AM

modeps, I finally had a chance to check out the video, and for the people even lazier than I am, here's the exact text as quoted -

""...if you like to use a database to manage your gaming and you love lists, the live arcade trial games will no longer be on your profile - it's something everyone was screaming about, their profile was littered with demos and trial versions..."

so they definately don't 'clearly state' they are removing exiting ones, his comment was rather ambiguous.

and in weighing the statement of someone from the msdn (remember the D stands for or developer) versus a marketing dude, i'm going to lend more credence to the words of the developer (especially when written in technically accurate bullet point rather than spoken in semi-ambiguous marketing spin*).

*this is not meant to knock the good work of the folks at at gamerscoreblog, I enjoy their column as well.

Gemini Ace @ Nov 30th 2007 4:14PM

Why does it matter if they show up on your gamercard? I like it. Can you turn it back on?

Nieker @ Nov 30th 2007 5:23PM

Dude, how can you "not" care? Gamerscore is like your virtual penis and the last thing you want is uninteresting games soiling you precious history.

Gemini Ace @ Nov 30th 2007 9:27PM

I guess I'm not trying to compensate for my the real size of my penis by inflating my virtual one.

mattclarkie @ Nov 30th 2007 4:20PM

I am so fed up of Marathon Durandal being on my played list. I was going to buy it, but like many it really made me feel sick. Removing it could be easily implemented, give you an option in the Dash to delete a title from your History, but why would MS bother?

BoxNut @ Nov 30th 2007 4:22PM

How will the divx thing work?
will it simply play discs with divx files on it, or can i load up my external hdd, or better yet put divx files onto my xbox360 hdd?

L @ Dec 1st 2007 12:49PM

You can play them from a DVD, CD, Any USB hard drive, WMP 11...zune..,.,.,.,so on .....
i am 99% not from your XBOX hard drive
BUT WHO CARES WE HAVE AVI =P lol

Cass-D @ Nov 30th 2007 4:27PM

Oh, well. I was kinda hoping I could get rid of that Wik trail. Yup I tried it...

stukorn @ Nov 30th 2007 4:28PM

My hopes were so high, I hate having all those 0's on my card and the shit games.

Josh @ Nov 30th 2007 4:31PM

weak! they should give us the option to clear out games with zero gamerscore on a case by case basis (make it available on the website!)

it also would have been nice if they took care of this issue:
http://schlagging.com/2007/08/14/got-360-read-this/

Cerixus @ Nov 30th 2007 5:30PM

It's not a big deal, which is what makes it such a big deal. How hard would it be to clear your played games list? What could it hurt?

I have 3 words for this announcement: Re-Tard-Ed

Amber @ Nov 30th 2007 5:55PM

It might be difficult to program... I don't know.

And don't you mean 3 syllables?

Amber @ Nov 30th 2007 5:54PM

Something that isn't really getting much press is the improved responsiveness of the dashboard and how quick it opens and responds now. I'm really thankful for that.

Cerixus @ Nov 30th 2007 6:01PM

I meant 3 words, it was a joke :)

Also, am I the only one that HATES the fact that if you link your 360 with a Media Center PC, from the 360 you can just view ANY content on ANY drive? I don't want my dog to start browsing folders on my desktop from the 360 and add the folder that has pictures of me with my other dog!

Also, I hate that music and pictures are not separate. I click "add music folder" and it scans. I click "add pictures folder" and it scans. Now I want to watch a lovely slideshow with lovely music. Wait, why are there crappy stretched versions of cover art in the middle of my slideshow? And why is that mp3 I have stored in my pictures folder playing?!

Completely unrelated, but completely lame. These two things actually keep me from using the MCE feature.

Amber @ Nov 30th 2007 6:38PM

You should use tversity then (google it).

Cerixus @ Dec 3rd 2007 4:20PM

Amber... I think I love you.

Why did I not know about Tversity MONTHS ago. It has a couple problems, but it's miles beyond using WMC. Thanks!

mike @ Nov 30th 2007 8:25PM

this is just terrible terrible news. Those pesky arcade downloads on my tag taint it. Im a 100%er. It looks like crap when you see I played 30 games, 20 of which have 100% completetion and 10 which are sitting at 0. Remove those damn zero demos from my tag. I mean its great that after the update the demos wont be added but come on, you could all be doing what i have, which is make a silver account to play demos on. I really want the demos on my current gold account removed, which unfortunetly were added to my tag on launch day when I tried the xbla service and didnt realise I would be condeming my tag to a permenant tagging of 0 point demo games.

Its not hard to program either. They need to simply make it so games with 0 gamerscore obtained, are not added to your cards. I also had a problem at a friends house when I recovered my gamertag to his console to play some halo 3 only to discover he had 99 niights in his drive at the time of recovery and the game was added to my gamerscore (despite the fact that we never launched the game and remained on the dashboard). I was then of course forced to play it to stop from a tainted record, at least I didnt have to buy anything. With arcade games tho Im not buying unenjoyable games from their demos.

Simple programming solution, just make it so games do not appear on your gamercard (permenantly) until after you have obtained at least 1 achievement.

At the very least they could remove the 0 achievment games from our cards for us, or give us an option to remove them.

Paul @ Nov 30th 2007 10:49PM

no IPTV news??

ushman @ Dec 1st 2007 12:17AM

I wonder if you could delete the trial game then after the update download the trial game again maybe that will work?

Darkharmony @ Dec 1st 2007 3:26AM

I was thinking the same thing ushman. I wonder if d/l the demo again would remove them. But I somehow don't think so because I think it just blocks the system from saving the achievements when starting a demo game. But I'm willing to give it a shot that's for sure.

Muffin Lad @ Dec 1st 2007 4:35AM

well thats la-homosexual

I mean how hard is it just to wipe some data of arcade demos or even just hide it. It may be hard but hell they have like a whole 6 months to get this gone. For a update thats is to be a big deal, they only offer little fixes that only add a "meh factor"

Well theres always the...next update

Kamal @ Dec 1st 2007 1:03PM

What happens if you play the arcade demo after the update that you played before the update? Will that clear the demo?

Wes @ Dec 2nd 2007 2:09AM

Honestly, I think I am a bit disappointed. Not by the no media support for divx thing as you can still watch it using the media blade and selecting videos or use a flash drive easily enough.

I'm disappointed because there's nothing innovative or new in there in my opinion.

A video game machine that can play a few more times of videos than it previously could? With a bit of improved performance here/there and a bit updated menu for selecting what videos you want to playback?

That's nice because its convenient and all but pretty much I could take a pre-fall update xbox 360 and transcode 360 and do everything I could do with the post-fall xbox 360.

In that regards, I prefer more where the Playstation 3 is going with its Playstation home. When home is eventually released someday in some future realm....it will add new functionality to the ps3(a virtual online world/meeting place with buildable virtual homes/collectable items/designer characters to use to launch games, socialize and meet people).

When the PS3 was first released, it had a second-rate, perhaps third-rate xbox live clone. Aka the playstation 3 marketplace? or whatever they call it? the ps3 store? However, eventually they'll end up with a still somewhat second-rate service in that its free so the quality of servers might not be great or particularly quick but better online experience in terms of an interactive way to socialize and download content than when it started.

The xbox 360's xbox live thought hasn't really changed much from my experience as a Canadian. Maybe once we get that xbox 360 downloadable hd videos on the canadian xbxo live marketplace promised at e3 I'll be reasonably excited. This will at least be something new that I couldn't do when I bought my 360. I'll have a way to purchase online hd content without leaving my house and on-demand.

Playing back videos with a new format supported? Not a new feature or innovation, its just an old feature slightly expanded. Slightly.

Sigh. I wanted innovation.