Microsoft Mass Deletion Starts Today

Microsoft has announced a mass deletion on Jan. 9 for Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X users. The company has always excelled at marketing the latest titles that will be available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. In fact, Microsoft has run extensive ad campaigns to promote its most recent Xbox Game Pass titles, as well as its announcement of the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.

However, the bad news is sometimes communicated using different marketing and PR processes. Unfortunately, as a result, many Xbox fans are unaware that they will be losing a lot of their content at the beginning of the new year. Microsoft began to alert Xbox owners via the direct console message system of a new policy that took effect Oct. 1. 

The Xbox Network initially announced it would implement a new policy to ensure that both new and existing captures on the Xbox Network will be automatically deleted after 90 days, with the first deletions to occur sometime in January 2024 as a result. This means that users will need to back up all the Xbox Live captures they have as they are about to be wiped from the Xbox Live servers.

“Due to a new policy starting on October 1st, 2023, existing and new captures on the Xbox Network will automatically be deleted after 90 days,” reads the alert. “The first deletions will start in January 2024.”

This decision caused a lot of discontent among Xbox fans. The worst part is that Microsoft has not communicated why it is doing this, leaving many to assume it’s for cost-savings, a logical assumption.

“How are they so freaking bad at this,” reads one comment to the above post. “If you just leave them on your Xbox they auto-delete, you have to upload them. Now they’re auto-deleting the uploaded ones too? Ffs, just let us leave them in our Xbox without auto-deleting them.”

“Honestly. Some executive proposed this to save a couple pennies for the service to get a promotion,” reads another comment. “In the process, destroying countless memories for their paying subscribers. Such a BS move my Micro$oft, I cannot believe this change made it so far without getting shot down.” As of this writing, Xbox has yet to respond to the controversy surrounding this decision and is unlikely to issue a statement to ease users’ minds concerning the move.