Xbox One owners have likely noticed a distinct lack of game demos as they sort through the options on Xbox Live. That is apparently a temporary thing and more demos are on the way, at least according to Microsoft’s Major Nelson (aka Larry Hryb). Despite his assurances though, gamers are likely going to see fewer demos in the future.
For many Xbox 360 users, the ability to play a demo for any game in the Xbox Live Arcade was a highlight, and a big check in the “pro” column over Sony’s PSN, which offered only a handful. In September though, Microsoft’s Marc Whitten confirmed that this was going away.
“Not all games will have demos like Xbox Live Arcade games have had on Xbox 360,” Whitten told OXM. “That said, we are going to work on lots of ways to make it easy for you to find and try new games on the service.”
Despite Whitten’s assurances that everything is going to be peachy, there remain exactly zero demos available to Xbox One users. In a comment thread on Hyrb’s blog, a fan asked about why this policy was changed. Hyrb sidestepped the policy question, but did claim that more demos are on the way.
“It is (and always has been) up to game developers to do demos for their own games,” Hryb replied. “[There’ll] be more demos for Xbox One as the platform goes forward.”
So there you go. It isn’t that demos are gone entirely, there just aren’t any available yet. Since developers are no longer required to make them though, don’t expect to see a ton of them on Xbox Live anytime soon.
