It’s been a while since an Xbox Live game has been pulled from the Marketplace. Last year, Fast & Furious: Adrenaline, Star Wars Cantina, and Star Wars: Battle for Hoth all got pulled at once. Besides that, the beleaguered Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst was taken down for good, and Twin Blades got temporarily pulled. Now we can add another game to the delisted list: Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (aka PES 2011) from Konami.
As with the previous pulled games, no warning was given before PES 2011 got yanked. Some have speculated its removal is due to PES 2012’s impending release. It is true that once PES 2012 comes out, nobody will want to buy the previous version. But is there any harm in allowing 2011 to collect virtual dust alongside its successor? After all, once a game has been pulled, people who already purchased that game can no longer redownload it. Removing a game every time its sequel comes around isn’t very fair to customers.
We’ve contacted Konami and Microsoft for comment and will update if they’re able to shed some light on the subject.
