Could Ecco the Dolphin be delisted on XBLA?
Posted by Chris. Filed under Chris. Tagged with Ecco, Sega Vintage Collection, XBLA.
You may or may not have heard the recent news that Microsoft plans to remove certain Xbox Live Arcade titles that aren’t performing at an acceptable level. That level is games that have been available for at least half a year, have a Metacritic score less than 65 and have a conversion rate of under six percent.
While Microsoft doesn’t openly share its conversion rates with the public, the other two criteria are easy enough to find out. Mygen has done the hard work for us and has discovered that more than 40 games could possibly be on the chopping block, including Sega’s Ecco the Dolphin.
Ecco was released on XBLA Aug. 15, 2007 and is saddled with a Metacritic score of only 53, which only serves to prove how silly mainstream reviews have become in recent years. While things certainly don’t look good for our underwater ally, we still don’t know what the game’s conversion rate is, which could actually save its life on XBLA if it’s higher than six percent.
It’s truly sad that the game might be axed due to some badly written reviews on Metacritic. It seems a lot of the publications that scored it the lowest, didn’t score the game based on its own merits, but compared it to other games that are available on the platform today. I don’t think I really need to go into detail on why that’s a problem. Ecco is currently available to purchase for only 400 points.
[Via Mygen/Image via Tree Bugger]
Comments on this article
There have been 9 responses to this article.
Actually this port of Ecco is horrible. It deserved the score it got.
Kogen
Posted May 26th, 2008 at 8:44 am.
I always thought Echo kinda sucked. Never understood the attraction to it.
Mark
Posted May 26th, 2008 at 10:39 am.
Here’s the list I put together last week, included 2008 titles (there are a lot of em, and they’d be applicable once this system comes into effect) and those with a review score of exactly 65. Adds quite a few more titles:
http://driph.com/words/2008/05/xbox-live-arcade-potential-delist-list/
It really illustrates how metacritic is a bad source for scoring when it comes to arcade titles. Yes, a lot of em are halfass ports, but others are just old games.
The real problem is XBLA and its UI and how information is presented to the user, not the abundance of games available.
Chris A
Posted May 26th, 2008 at 12:35 pm.
I would have bought ECCO if it had the Mega CD soundtrack available, I can’t say the sonic ports were better, but hey, those are the best sonic of all time, and the best Streets of Rage with online! but ECCO?…
landman
Posted May 26th, 2008 at 1:25 pm.
I also bought Golden Axe for the online play and because it was the arcade version
landman
Posted May 26th, 2008 at 1:27 pm.
Thanks for bringing this to that attention of people. Ecco deserves it.
It is the genesis version and I do not see how bad the conversion is … pretty similar.
Psycho_Echidna
Posted May 26th, 2008 at 1:51 pm.
Like others mentioned, while the Sonic ports were not very good at all, the games are just too good on their own to be viewed as bad in decent emulation(although buggy and lacking features of the cart versions, as well as a big leaderboard bug in Sonic 1, and Sonic 1 being version 1.0 rather than 1.3). SoR 2 was fine, except for the vs. being extremely laggy(no one plays that, anyway) and the standard sound issues with emulation. GA was fine too, but people tell me the online is a bit wonky.
Compared to these, Ecco stands out as a pile of crap. The game aged poorly and was an inferior port of the game. The achievements were also nearly impossible(beat game three times in a row without dying, lol?).
Kogen
Posted May 26th, 2008 at 6:54 pm.
The reviews for the game were atrocious though, a lot got most of the information wrong. I swear it seems like a lot of the reviewers played the game for about 20 minutes and wrote up a review.
Sega Uranus
Posted May 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm.
It seems only old Nintendo games receive the “+20 points for nostalgia” bonus these days.
Ecco the Dolphin was/is a classic.
Bunch of Philistines…
Resident nEvil
Posted May 27th, 2008 at 10:51 pm.