No More ‘Halo’ and ‘Halo 2’ Games Online
February 5, 2010 – Microsoft announced last night that online play for original Xbox titles would cease on April 15. The announcement means that an end will come to epic sessions of Halo and Halo 2 and many other classic Xbox titles.
Xbox Live’s Director of Programming, Larry Hryb, announced last night on his blog, MajorNelson, that the service would come to an end soon. He wrote, “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. Our first step in this process will be to turn off auto-renewals for those members who only use Xbox LIVE on a v1 Xbox. 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 releases.”
In addition, Marc Whitten also posted a letter, saying “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 they benchmark for multiplayer gaming in this generation, with ‘Halo 3,’ ‘Halo 3: ODST’ and soon ‘Halo: Reach’ on Xbox 360.”
He continued, saying, “And as we look down the road, we’ll continue to evolve the service with features and experiences that harness the full power of Xbox 360. To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games.”
Finally, Whitten noted that, “I couldn’t be more excited about what we have in store with ‘Project Natal’ and LIVE.”
The announcement certainly makes us wonder what they could be adding that is incompatible with Xbox titles. Expect Halo 2 fans to petition the decision or at least get very upset about it.
Let us know your thoughts below and we’ll keep you updated as Microsoft let’s us know more about it.
