Sega announced in a post on its blog this evening that it is going to remove a number of games from its catalog on the App Store. Sega says that a several of its games on the App Store no longer meet its “high-quality” standards. Sega will also remove the unsupported games from the Google Play Store, the Samsung App Store and the Amazon App Store.
Sega says that if you purchased one of the games that it is removing from the App Store, you will still be able to play it on your device and that it will remain in the purchased apps section of the App Store for future download on any of your devices.
While Sega did not yet specify which games it will be removing from the App Store over the coming weeks, it did note that a few of them may return eventually in an “updated form.” Again, specific titles were not mentioned in the company’s blog post.
At SEGA we are committed to making fun, high-quality mobile games and it is with our fans’ best playing experience in mind that we announce the removal of a number of games from our back catalogue. It is important for us to ensure that all of our fans, regardless of platform or operating system, have a great playing experience and after evaluating our complete list of titles, we have determined that a number of them no longer meet our standards. As a result, we will be removing these titles from the App Store for Apple devices, the Google Play Store, the Samsung App Store and the Amazon App Store over the next few weeks. While we have nothing to announce at this time, given the right situation, these titles may return in an updated form.
You can view Sega’s catalog of App Store titles here. Apps will begin being removed over the coming weeks.
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Apple should require ALL apps be updated and compatible with the latest operating system, resolutions, and the current iOS GUI/UI within 3 months of its release (exceptions only for large catalogs of apps, out to 6 months), or they are removed from the App Store, but remain available for download. It’s absurd that apps are allowed to remain in a dormant state on the App Store.
For one example, Resident Evil 4 is available for download on the App Store, but it’s last update was October 11, 2011. That is completely unacceptable. They didn’t update the app, but they updated the description which says ‘Important Notice:
Functionality is not guaranteed on devices that are updated to iOS 8.’
That shouldn’t be allowed to remain on the App Store.
Since the Xbox One was released then all retail stores should pull Xbox 360 games off the shelf, right? The fact is that there are still plenty of devices that are running on the older iOS. What needs to happen is a compatibility chart with exactly what iOS devices and iOS software it functions on. It is amazing how many people do not know what exact generation device they have or software. Many apps say something like “10.7 or greater” but it breaks at 10.9 or same thing with iOS programs.
Leave the older titles up but make it specific exactly what devices as well as what software it works with.
God no. Take the old titles down. Leave them available to download it already purchased.
By the way your comparison to Xbox makes virtually no sense at all. And just so you know, probably more than 98% are running iOS 7 or iOS 8, and over 80% are running iOS 8, and it hasn’t even been a year.
There’s many apps that were last updated years ago that continue to function just fine. Also, just because Apple overhauls their UI, that doesn’t necessarily mean app developers should be forced to follow suit. Consumers should be given the option to use that app or one that better follows Apples UI guidelines. It’s not as though everyone loves the UI changes introduced by Apple anyway, or other developers can’t have their own worthy designs. For example, the Google Apps are frequently updated but use their own UI guidelines which I still feel works pretty well on iOS.
Right lmao. So since ‘many apps’ still work ‘just fine’ they definitely shouldn’t force updates. Haha. And no, iOS 6 GUI is NOT okay for apps today. Google having their own relatively flat GUI is fine, but to have apps still with iOS 6 GUI is embarrassing.
Many older apps DO work fine. I happen to have one or two on my phone now. Sure, I’d like an update as much as the next person, but the application still functions as well as it did day one.
If a developer chooses not to update their app, and customers decide the UI is crap, then they are quite welcome to use a different app.
As stated, while I don’t fall into that bucket, many people preferred iOS 6 to iOS 7’s design. That and I fail to see why it’s ok for Google to deviate from the design guidelines, while it’s not ok for an App to use the previous Apple guidelines. In both cases they aren’t conforming to Apple’s current design language…but at least one did conform in the past. Seems purely down to personal choice, and as above, you’re welcome to use an alternative application.
Welcome to use a different app that’s funny. It’s actually sad that someone is in support of app developers not being forced to keep their apps up to date with Apple’s latest software, when they’re selling to customers on Apple’s devices. The fact that you could purchase a $15 Final Fantasy game, and not have it compatible with the next OS or your new phone, when iOS was specifically designed to make this simple for everyone.
The simple fact is, Apple should enforce this. Instead, they don’t want to lose the ability to say they have 1.5 million apps, leaving out the fact that 99% are redundant, garbage, or no longer updated by their developers.
The App Store should be focused on quality, not quantity at this point. Apple should be selling the fact that they have the best apps, not the most apps. They should be selling that the apps on the App Store are kept up to date, and relevant.
Update date is not relevant, really. What matters is: does it work?
Are most of the new reviews one stars? Re-review the app and remove it if it doesn’t work.
Apple should just show how compatible they are, like do they only support iPhone 4 resolution? Say it.
Update date is absolutely relevant. Apple shouldn’t allow apps to remain on THEIR store that the developers don’t bother to make fully compatible to the latest software and hardware that Apple is using.
I’ll let you guys in a secret. Apple already does this to an extent, just not enough. Apple, after several months, does NOT allow any submitted updates to apps, to not comply to their latest GUI/UI, and compatability to their latest operating system. If anyone submits an update to their app right now, they have to comply to these. What Apple SHOULD do is exactly what I said, they should FORCE all apps on THEIR store to have to be updated within a certain time after Apple’s latest releases, or they are removed from the store (still available for download by previous purchasers), until the developers decide to not be lazy.
Like I said, the App Store is one aspect of Apple that they let quality go for quantity. It should be all about quality at this point. Not quantity. They shouldn’t allow so many useless, redundant, never updated apps, to remain dormant on their store. The App Store is lagging behind at this point, it needs to be brought up to 2015.
Hopefully the Sonic games that were recently updated will not be discontinued.. they work flawlessly on mobile and have been remastered by great devs… Imagine if Square Enix starts doing this (they charge 20$ per app so it would be absurd if they followed suit)
Apparently you missed the part where you get to re-download it if previously purchased. However, the ridiculous part is lack of updates to support current iOS versions for the apps people spent $20 on.
I meant that if iOS 9 comes out, no matter if the app is in my purchased section, it might not run and that would piss me off.. But I’m sure they will keep Sonic games updated because they seem to be their biggest sellers (judging from the list of apps and frequency of updates)
what bugs me is sometimes games like atari arcade pack or midway arcade aren’t pulled when iOS 8 comes out. and all those in app purchases will no longer work. because iOS 8 changed the fie system. yet the app still charges your iTunes account for games you can’t download on your device, until the developer submits a new version
the two games i gave examples of are now iOS 8 compatible so you can buy the games for it.
but i was charged for midway games like gauntlet , etc that i could not download. i got a refund from apple and had to wait for an iOS 8 version to come out and then repurchase the games
Unfortunately you really need to update your OS in order to get the latest security patches. It’s very frustrating when doing so breaks your apps.
Regarding Sega… it’s kind of sad that they didn’t decide to actually fix their games to make them work well on iOS 8 (and current iOS devices) with high-quality, responsive touch controls as well as support for MFI controllers.
Sounds like a response to Nintendo’s new policy of going “quality over quantity” on iOS over the next few years with their initial releases.