One of the few things we’ve always known for sure about Windows Phone 8 is that apps designed and built for the previous version of the OS would still work fine on the new handsets. At least that’s what Microsoft kept saying right up to the official announcement. However, the company did note that a very small number of apps would need to be optimized or even changed in order for them to work properly on the new operating system.
WPCentral reports that incompatibility between versions is a bigger deal than most of us expected. It would seem that that “small number of apps” mainly consists of popular Xbox titles that have now been hidden in the Windows Phone Store. The current list of missing apps is about 25 titles long.
Microsoft seems to be taking a very weird approach here. First of all the delisting of the apps: it’s their doing. Secondly the apps aren’t actually gone as searching for them on a Windows Phone 7 handset still brings up results, but they have been removed from the web store.
And thirdly, and this is the really weird part, Microsoft has done all of this in complete silence, without letting any of the app developers know. WPCentral contacted some of these devs and most of them were shocked to find out that their game had been delisted and said they would contact Microsoft to figure things out.
Such a move strikes us as strange especially considering the developers willingness to work with Microsoft and fix the problems so they can get their apps back out there.
You can find the list of missing apps in the original article below. Be sure to drop us a comment and let us know what you think.
Source: WPCentral