Microsoft's Edge extensions store hosted illegal copies of iconic games

San Francisco: Microsoft Edge extensions store is believed to have hosted "pirated copies" of classic games including Mario Kart 64, Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Pac-Man, Tetris, Cut The Rope, and even its own smash-hit game Minecraft.

According to The Verge, the developers behind these offers were not Microsoft, Nintendo or "any other" related parties.

The games were discovered among the extensions available for Microsoft's Edge web browser where they had been hiding in plain sight for at least three months.

As per the report, the Sonic game, another Mario game, a couple of Pac-Man games, and a variety of copies of 2048, Flappy Bird, Fruit Ninja, Temple Run are not available anymore. All that remains what appears to be a copy of Google Chrome's dinosaur game.

However, initially, 35 listings across 10 different "developers" from different developers but had very similar descriptions, indicating that they could be coming from the same source.

One user installed the Mario Kart 64 extension from Microsoft's store and posted a screenshot from Edge showing the compressed archive containing the ROM that the extension downloaded. He also said he installed a Pac-Man extension, and it "seems like it's using direct assets from the original game."

The games are being removed from the Edge extension list as they are being discovered, though it's uncertain how many are left and waiting to be found by Microsoft.