Xbox Live to drop original Xbox game support

[Chris3123]

Well, this sucks. On April 15, Xbox Live will cease to support Live features for original Xbox games. This will effectively reduce functionality for many of them. The Halo 2 community will obviously be the one hardest hit by this decision.

Note that this only effects functions of the games that are actually performed over Live. Compatible Xbox games will still work on 360s, they just won't be able to access Live anymore.

Link

 

[SpeedRacer]

Well shucks, I guess they'll finally have to start playing Halo 3 or ODST.

I still have my original Xbox with all of my stuff on it; I just wish I had been able to download all of the old Crimson Skies maps. Not that they matter now, of course.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

The saddest thing for me is the loss of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory multiplayer.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

It was bound to happen eventually.

 

[firehawk12]

There's a mini debate about the nature of these services and the longevity of games.

If the issue is that these games are holding back Xbox Live features (groups, larger friends lists, etc), then in principle I'm fine with killing support for older games. It just seems rather unfortunate that they couldn't find a solution - say create a second network just for Xbox or "legacy" games and leave it at that.

 

[Caretaker]

This does stink, not that I have used my original XBox in a long time. I agree - a second or legacy XBox Live network would be nice to have to keep the multiplayer functions of the original system and its game going.

 

[Hermiod]

There's a mini debate about the nature of these services and the longevity of games.

If the issue is that these games are holding back Xbox Live features (groups, larger friends lists, etc), then in principle I'm fine with killing support for older games. It just seems rather unfortunate that they couldn't find a solution - say create a second network just for Xbox or "legacy" games and leave it at that.

I do know that one reason for this is that original Xbox support requires them to limit people's friends lists to 100.

Apart from Halo 2 what are games are people trying to play in sufficient numbers to justify keeping it running ?

 

[Rii]

This is why all games should support TCP/IP multiplayer. Plug in the IP of the host and away you go. No Live (or PSN, Steam, Bnet, etc.) required.

Hell, I can play Microsoft's Age of Empires from 1996 over the internet that way today if I like. I guess things were more advanced back then.

 

[firehawk12]

That's how people continue to play original Xbox games today without paying for Live service. It requires more work (and friends who have the game that you can contact), but it's a possibility.

Ironically, a lot of games that supported "The Zone", one of the Age of Empires included, did not have direct IP options either... so this stuff can happen with PC games as well.

 

[Rii]

That's how people continue to play original Xbox games today without paying for Live service. It requires more work (and friends who have the game that you can contact), but it's a possibility.

Microsoft should release a patch enabling such functionality out of the box. The only reason not do so is that it might make folks wonder why they're paying for Live at all.

Ironically, a lot of games that supported "The Zone", one of the Age of Empires included, did not have direct IP options either... so this stuff can happen with PC games as well.

Oh, definitely. I daresay it's the rule with most PC games nowadays too, at least those from major publishers. Regardless of platform it's a case of publishers screwing over legitimate consumers in a vain attempt to discourage piracy.

 

[firehawk12]

Well, pretty much all Ubisoft games won't work if Ubisoft ever goes out of business. Same with Steam games I suppose, but I trust them to be around for at least a few more years anyway. Otherwise, my thousand dollar collection of PC games becomes worthless. :lol
I figure even a big game like MW2 will be dead whenever Activision/IW decide to kill the matchmaking service.

And you know, the whole XConnect thing was basically meant to circumvent the need for Live... Of course, it meant hacking the Xbox, but there ya go.

 

[Hermiod]

^Valve's view on that is that in the unlikely situation that they ever went out of business and nobody stepped in to take over Steam, they would be to push out a client update that unlocked everyone's games permanently.

Of course, you would have to ensure that you had already downloaded every game you wanted to keep, and you'd have to back them all up but that's no different to the thousands of PC - and console for that matter - games you can't buy new anymore.

 

[Rii]

^ Of course Valve's empire is built upon precisely this manner of villainy. They crow about Steam's 20m users, neglecting to mention that the first few million came from forcing Counter-Strike players to the platform at swordpoint by shutting down the WON authentication servers.

 

[Hermiod]

^Yeah, Gabe's twirling his handlebar moustache right this moment just at the thought of it, I'm sure.

 

[Rii]

At least Valve doesn't charge for the privilege of screwing folks over like Microsoft does.

EA shut down a bunch of their old servers recently too. No patches forthcoming there either I notice.

 

[Hermiod]

^To patch what ? The lack of multiplayer ?

This is EA after all, they've probably laid off anyone involved in developing the games that have had their servers switched off.

 

[Rii]

It shouldn't be too difficult to create a wrapper application that provides an "enter Host IP here" interface on the client side and emulates the necessary functions of EA's servers on the Host side, with no game specific alterations required.

 

[Hermiod]

It shouldn't be too difficult to create a wrapper application that provides an "enter Host IP here" interface on the client side and emulates the necessary functions of EA's servers on the Host side, with no game specific alterations required.

For every game they've shut down ?

The servers were shut down because nobody was playing the games. Why would more people want to play just because the servers were shut down ?

 

[Rii]

The servers were shut down because nobody was playing the games.

Why would more people want to play just because the servers were shut down ?

If there are two people on the planet who want to play the game they've purchased together, they should be able to do that. This is a problem entirely of the publisher's devising, if they didn't want the burden of running servers for their games they could've not designed them in the manner that they did.

I'm amazed that folks are so cavalier about this. If Blizzard shut down the Diablo II servers or Valve shut down the Counter-Strike servers (both titles which predate the launch of the original Xbox) people would shit bricks. If N64's Goldeneye 007 had online multiplayer support to be withdrawn then the same would be true there. I guess it just goes to show that there actually were no memorable online games on Xbox.

 

[firehawk12]

There's really nothing you can say I suppose. At least you can still play the games offline.