#1 [url]

Apr 28 10 6:55 PM

The news of the shutdown took me by suprise. I saw a high level of compatibility between the online modes for original Xbox games and those of Xbox 360 games. For example, if you send mail to an Xbox 360 user in Burnout 3, that message will be converted to an Xbox 360 LIVE text message, and the recipient will be able to view it. For this reason, I assumed that the two systems were hard-wired into each other, and that therefore, as long as Xbox 360 games would be playable online, version 1 games would remain playable online, too, just as MasterChief78 had thought. Once I saw a secondhand copy of Dead or Alive: Ultimate on sale, and considered buying it, in part for its online mode, but figured, "Perhaps I should see if I can find a better price somewhere else, later. I'll be able to play it's online mode any time within the next five years, at least." How laughably naive such thoughts appear in retrospect.

What do I think of the shutdown? I think it's a slap in the face to all the Xbox users who, for years, had been told by the most loyal of Xbox fanatics, "even though you must pay for Xbox LIVE, it's better, because with Xbox LIVE, you get what you pay for! Of course something you'd pay for would be better than something that's free!" After being told that, connectivity for version 1 Xbox games is discontinued, with less than three months' notice, while dozens of games for the Playstation 2 are still playable online, most of them at no charge. One who disagrees may retort that many of the online games for the Playstation 2 in the USA had been shut down far before April 15th, 2010, so at least by paying for Xbox LIVE, you were ensuring that all games would remain playable online until the day on which all games were shut down. However, the majority of games for Playstation 2 that had already been shut down were made by EA. All online games EA released for the Xbox connected to EA's servers after authenticating to Xbox LIVE, and all of those games, except for Burnout 3 and Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, had already had their online modes shut down prior to April 15th, anyway. Additionally, servers for the Xbox version of Phantasy Star Online, a non-EA game, were shut down in April of 2008, about two years before the Xbox LIVE shutdown. By the way, are there any other non-EA games whose online modes were terminated prior to the 15th of April?

At least most of the online games have system link, and thus can still be tunneled. Ironically, this may be part of the reason why there wasn't too much backlash in response to the shutdown. Many of the people who still really wanted to play Halo 2 figured, "It's okay, I can just use Xlink Kai after April 15th." Perhaps there also won't be much enthusiasm for any reverse-engineering of Xbox LIVE, and games like auto modellista will never be resurrected.