Short answer: No. Long answer: I think you can uninstall the games using dpkg (with --force-depends) but then dependencies of osso-software-version-* will not be satisfied. After breaking the dependencies it is possible that updating the device will either reinstall the games or remove osso-software-version-* altogether. While removing osso-software-version-* probably won't have any immediate consequences, it is possible that should new base packages be added to OS2008 (as unlikely it is), those would not be necessarily installed automatically on your device. If you really want to get rid of the packages I think your best shot would be to create a metapackage that provides (and replaces and conflicts with) the packages you want to uninstall. This way osso-software-version-* package can be kept installed and future updates should work. However, if versions of removed packages are updated, locked versions os osso-software-version-* will no longer work. To summarise: It can be done but you'll have to take some risks.