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Xbox Live For Original Xbox Games Shutting Down

Posted by Soulskill on from the this-is-where-the-sidewalk-ends dept.

itwbennett writes "Giving no explanation beyond that it 'will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community,' Microsoft's General Manager for Xbox Live, Mark Whitten, announced that as of April 15th, Microsoft will be shutting down its Xbox Live service for the original Xbox and its games. 'Cold comfort for those of you who still enjoy playing Xbox titles like Halo 2 with your friends,' writes blogger Peter Smith. But Smith notes that Whitten's announcement does hint at some form of restitution for those affected, encouraging users to check their LIVE messages for more details and opportunities."

16 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. So I guess you would call it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Xbox Dead... goodnight everybody, I'll be here all week. Remember to tip your waitress.

  2. Well... by Jorl17 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We can't sit around and hope that everything will be maintained for ever...
    Sometimes it has to go down as deprecated, no matter when, no matter how, no matter why. Microsoft can and Microsoft shall, that's the price for being at their hands. The reward? To get to use their products.

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    1. Re:Well... by jgagnon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It would make far more sense if they had stopped selling XBox games first.

      --
      Remember to maintain your supply of /facepalm oil to prevent chafing.
    2. Re:Well... by blahplusplus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "We can't sit around and hope that everything will be maintained for ever..."

      You wouldn't have this problem on PC, anyone with a server or internet connection can host their own.

    3. Re:Well... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The issue, of course, is less with exactly when a given product is deprecated, and more with how many products are designed such that deprecation is effectively terminal.

      It is hard to make a case for forcing a company to continue to offer a particular good or service(unless they contractually obligated themselves and are violating that contract); but the fact that product design is moving in the direction of deprecation = death is extremely disturbing.

      Historically, with PC games, the creator may or may not have offered a matchmaking service or servers at all, but there was nothing stopping 3rd parties from doing so. Increasingly, through a combination of DRM activation and closer tying of matchmaking services and multiplayer servers to the core game, it is becoming difficult for 3rd parties to step up(and, if they do, they often place themselves in the line of fire with respect to some DMCA or equivalent legal hassle). On the hardware side, it is a matter of driver specs and parts. If driver specs aren't available, deprecation is death more or less as soon as the next major OS comes out. If service guides/tools/parts are tightly restricted, deprecation is death as soon as the parts dry up.

      The fact that products get deprecated is fine. The fact that the severity of deprecation is markedly increasing, and promises only to increase further, is very, very troubling.

    4. Re:Well... by spleentor · · Score: 5, Informative

      Tribes is still very much alive. Unlike with an xbox live game, all you need to do is change the master server the game looks for. http://www.maxogc.net/tribes/master/

    5. Re:Well... by blahplusplus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes he is really, when an MMO shuts down it takes down ONLY the mmo and anyone who gets into MMO's knows this before hand since a game can only maintain the servers for as long as there is paying customers, stand alone games are nothing like this. Hence his fallacious comparison.

    6. Re:Well... by jgagnon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except that the XBox games being sold still tout their multi-player capabilities. Now if they reduce the XBox game prices to reflect the loss of capabilities and relabel them to suit, this would be less of an issue (but still wholly relevant to those who purchased XBox games recently for their multi-player capabilities).

      And, for the record, I don't own or use the XBox or XBox 360.

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      Remember to maintain your supply of /facepalm oil to prevent chafing.
    7. Re:Well... by RobDude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Game companies can't have it both ways (they can try, but eventually customers will wise up).

      With 'private' servers they host (and only they can host) and even various DRM techniques; they've produced games that require the servers to be up and running for games to continue to work.

      That game you legal purchased and own....you can only expect it to work as advertised, so long as the company continues to keep their end up and running.

      It's easy for people to dismiss concerns of 'Ummm - what if the shut down the servers' and simply say, 'Come'on Microsoft isn't going anywhere!'. But, even in the short time that online gameplay can be expected - we've seen TONS of games lose functionality.

      Apparently, every Xbox game that was playable on Xbox Live is now crippleware.

      Maybe you only play games for 6 months and move on...but some people don't. They enjoy replaying their games. I'll play through FF1 every 2-4 years and that came out in 1987. It's still fun, at least for me. Sure, only a select few games get that level of replay value; but it's *your* game. Or, it should be.

      This is all just another step towards having to 'rent' your games in order to play them. And sitting back and idling dismissing it as 'no big deal' just invites the problem to continue.

  3. Punish Them by Concern · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you want to know what the cost is for buying games from companies that control their platform this tightly, now you get to see it.

    If it bothers you, you have one option. Cancel your xbox live subs. Ebay your xbox. Buy your games on a different platform.

    They didn't even set out to screw you over and make the games you (thought you) paid for (largely) worthless. You just gave them so much power that they practically did it by accident.

    The answer is the PC games model we already had, where the platform is open and the infrastructure isn't something you are forced to buy from a single seller you are locked to for life (xbox live).

    Yeah, I know - what is one slashdot post going to do to stop the console juggernaut? Answer: nothing. But don't say I didn't warn you. Give a thought at least to patronizing developers who make and sell their games the old-fashioned way. Especially the ones who support open standards and open platforms like opengl and linux - there are a few.

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    1. Re:Punish Them by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Funny

      I never had Fender call me to say that I could only use the G-string from that point on.

      That line had me all sorts of confused until I realized that Fender is a guitar company, not a supplier of stripper apparel.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  4. Life expectancy by chilvence · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article, Halo 2 has a 5 year run on the internet. Wow, thats a LONG time!

    Doom is still being played online.. that's about 17 years and still going?

    So from this we can see, if you happen to be attached to a particular game, then in future you get to be dispersed by the company for loitering.

    How many people here play chess?

  5. Dedicated servers by TyFoN · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And this is why you want player controlled dedicated servers for your
    favorite FPS or RTS game. A game studio will eventually shut down the central
    one because of the lack of $$. Oh and I am still waiting for a game studio to
    try the monthly fee route for their central server :p

  6. Translation by Gudeldar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quit playing your Xbox and buy a Xbox 360 already dammit.

    - Love Steve Ballmer

  7. Replayability and licensing by zero_out · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As an avid gamer, I hate the way modern games are moving away from the old model of pay once, play forever, and moving toward licensing. It may not be called licensing by the producers, but that's exactly what it is. How many of us still enjoy a nostalgic game of Donkey Kong, or Super Mario Bros.? I'm sure there is still a group of gamers out there who enjoy a multiplayer game of Quake or Command and Conquer.

    Ten years from now, a few friends would like to play a game of Halo 2, but they won't be able to. Just last year, I sank a good 30 hours into the original Sid Mier's(sp?) Colonization, like I have been doing since 1996. I don't know the details about Xbox Live, or Halo 2, but if the game requires a centralized Live server for multiplayer functionality, then it simply won't work. In effect, you are only licensing a portion of the game for a certain period of time. Sure, you can code your own server from scratch, like the Star Wars Galaxies fans have done, but that still eliminates 90% of the fans who will one day want to replay the game that they loved.

  8. Already a trend by revengebomber · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's talk about some old games. Take, for one, Halo 2. It's now going to be permanently offline, as a result of it being connected to Microsoft's services. Let's go back though. Take a look at Jedi Knight. Can you play that online anymore? Nope. Microsoft service. Dead. Any of those other MSN/"Zone" games? Dead. At least DirectPlay supported LAN in the same manner as online, so the games all still support that.

    But - Quake 2? Still kicking. Released the same year as JK, too, IIRC. Microsoft continues to do this; they entice game developers with easy online/multiplayer libraries and then kill the service to force people to upgrade. I fear for all the Games for Windows games; that's why I'll never buy a title that uses Games for Windows Live. 10 years down the road, all those games will be permanently offline too, as will (likely) all this trash like CoD42 which uses an even smaller and even more restricted network. Meanwhile, I'll still be playing Quake 3 (and hopefully RAGE, now that it's not being published by EA).

    DirectPlay. Live. When will developers learn?

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