Three Xbox games have been hard delisted on the platform, meaning they were not only removed from the Xbox Store but also from the libraries of anyone who owned them. To be clear, Xbox users can still play them if they are currently downloaded and installed, but the purchase history of them and the ability to download them again have ended. It's hard to ignore that this is a reality when many folks are concerned about the next-gen Xbox and PlayStation 6 shifting to digital-only sales, given that this is an issue of digital ownership.
Many gamers are upset about PlayStation ending disc production and signaling the end of the physical media era, and one of the compounding issues is the sheer lack of protection when it comes to digital ownership. Once online-only multiplayer games shut down their servers, players no longer access them—that's not ownership. If PlayStation and Xbox can nullify a purchase at any time, then players can lose their games for any reason—that's not ownership. And so digital ownership remains a centerpiece of gaming discussions, with this hard delisting showing yet another way someone's gaming library can just shrink with no input.
An official...
