Microsoft has begun issuing refunds for a number of games that recently went up on Xbox Live for players on Xbox One looking to get their hands on some classic titles that had previously been unavailable. The refunds in question are coming for de-listed Xbox 360 games that became suddenly available earlier in August with no explanation or announcement as to why they had been returned to the Microsoft Store in the first place.
The news comes through Twitter user @Wario64, an industry insider who often shares leaks and rumors, who shared their experience with Microsoft after having purchased one of the de-listed titles. One of these games even had players speculating on a new Silent Hill coming, as an older Xbox 360 title had appeared among the list of titles made available.
News of the refunds first reached players through an email from Microsoft, informing anyone who had purchased one of the de-listed titles that they will be refunded for their purchases. The emails themselves are fairly bare, only stating that the customers will be receiving a discount for the purchases made, with no information as to why the games are being de-listed again. Most players are assuming that the games were never meant to hit the Microsoft Store in the first place, and their relisting was more of an accident than intentional.
For any fans that purchased any of these de-listed games, they will also find that they are suddenly unable to play any of these titles if they had been purchased in the last few weeks. Some players have found that as long as they stay offline, most effectively by physically removing their ethernet connection, they still have access to the games as long as it was downloaded, giving them a chance to get through the game once before connecting again. However, many other players have already decided to turn those returns around for some of the deals available during the Xbox Store's Summer Sale.
Considering that Microsoft never made any announcements about the relisting in the first place, and there has yet to be any official stance on the de-listing and refunding of these games again, fans have been left to speculate the reason for the sudden backpedaling. The most reasonable answer that most fans have gravitated around is that the licenses for those titles had simply expired, which led to the original de-listing in the first place, and they were never meant to go up again. As a result, the Microsoft Store likely didn't technically have the rights to sell digital copies of the games, meaning that putting leaving them up for sale, or taking any earnings from the sales, would have left the company open for multiple legal issues.