Original Xbox Live Support Ends April 15th, Halo 2 Holdouts Commence Panic

It’s a sad day for those few faithful out there who were still hanging on to their old Xboxes, or playing the few backward compatible games that still had active online communities on their 360s. Microsoft announced on Friday that it was pulling the plug on the original incarnation of Xbox Live after seven years.

The announcement came via Major Nelson, with a follow-up from XBL General Manager Marc Whitten on the Gamerscore blog. Hit the jump for more details.

“I wanted to let you know that on April 15, 2010 Microsoft will discontinue Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox 1 games playable on Xbox 360,” began Nelson’s post.

“While I can’t comment on the specifics, this change will allow us to continue evolving the LIVE service with new features and experiences that fully harness the power of Xbox 360 and the Xbox LIVE community. We did not make this decision lightly, but after careful consideration and review we realize that this decision will allow us unprecedented flexibility for future features,” he continued.

The changes, most assume, would likely include the increase (or removal) of the XBL cap of 100 friends, which was due to legacy infrastructure for the old system still being supported. I’m sure far more than just a simple friend cap change is in the works, but this jumps out as the most obvious move we’ll see (I’d expect an announcement at E3, if not sooner).

“I want to start by saying this isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community,” said Whitten, in his follow-up.

He addressed the obvious support of Halo franchise fans as one of the reasons legacy support continued for as long as it did:

“There’s no greater example of the power of the Xbox LIVE community than the “Halo” franchise. “Halo 2” has had an amazing run on LIVE, with a dedicated community more than five years after launch and well into the next generation of consoles. It has fundamentally changed the way we play video games. And while it’s difficult to see that run come to an end, the “Halo” franchise continues to act as the benchmark for multiplayer gaming in this generation, with “Halo 3,” “Halo 3: ODST” and soon “Halo: Reach” on Xbox 360.”

Dry your tears, Halo 2 (and Counter-Strike, and Star Wars: Battlefront, and…) fans. Nothing good lasts forever, but your current-gen brothers are here to support you in your time of need. Still, this does mark the ending of an era – the original Xbox was really the first home console to aggressively, actively embrace the online gaming community. Sure, others dabbled with it before then, but nobody really threw the muscle and belief behind it that Microsoft did.

Hopefully the future will hold some interesting future iterations of Xbox Live, now that it’s been freed from the shackles of its old framework. Only time will tell.

[Via: Major Nelson & Gamerscore Blog]

Tags: Backwards compatibility shutdown Xbox Xbox Live Xbox Originals