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Where Are The Xbox One Demos?
If you are an Xbox 360 owner, you might be wondering where all the Xbox One game demos are. You probably expected that digital-only titles like Powerstar Golf, Lococycle, and Peggle 2 might have them by default. Things have changed, though.
On the Xbox 360, Microsoft required that all Xbox Live Arcade titles have an accompanying demo. Now that Xbox Live Arcade is a thing of the past on Xbox One, that stricture has been removed.
“It is (and always has been) up to game developers to do demos for their own games,” Xbox Live program director Larry Hryb writes. “They'll (sic) be more demos for Xbox One as the platform goes forward.”
The Xbox One groups all games together, breaking down the barriers between Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Indie Games, and Games on Demand (full retail games that become available digitally). The best way to find content on the store right now is to use the Kinect’s search command.
[Source: Major Nelson via Official Xbox Magazine UK]
Our Take
The Xbox One is a step forward in so many ways, but it also stumbles in some basic usability areas. The store is hard to navigate, leaning too heavily on search functions. The lack of demos might be less expensive for developers in the short-term, but I suspect that sales will be lost if developers of lesser promoted games don’t make the expenditure. This is an unfortunate side effect of the “games are games are games” approach espoused by the team, and one I hope sees remediation.
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