Microsoft Shutting Down Xbox Live For Original Xboxes

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In a letter released today, Xbox Live General Manager Marc Whitten informed the Xbox Live members that they would be discontinuing the Xbox Live service for original Xbox consoles. He said that they had reached an impasse and were unable to make improvements they wanted to Xbox Live while still supporting the original Xbox games.

“Halo 2″, the popular online Xbox 1 shooter, is still frequently played by a large community of gamers (despite there being two more Halo games released since) and they’ll likely be the most affected by the move to shut down Xbox 1 Live support.

It’s also worth noting that this will also affect “Xbox Originals” which are downloadable Xbox 1 games that one can purchase and buy via Xbox Live for the Xbox 360. While you’ll still be able to buy and download Xbox Originals, any online component will be disabled.

Xbox Live, which launched in 2002 for the original Xbox, was the first successful online gaming platform for home consoles. SegaNet for the Dreamcast and the Network Adapter for the PS2, although released earlier, were never as successful or as popular as the original Xbox Live.

The reason for this change? One is likely the size of the friend’s list. In 2005, users discovered that the Xbox 360′s version of Xbox Live still only supported 100 friends maximum. Microsoft blamed the backwards compatibility with the original Xbox 1′s Xbox Live for the limitation, as well as other features, like clan support.

With the original Xbox getting it’s Live support cut it’s likely that we’ll see some technical improvements to the service, like a bigger friend’s list and perhaps clan support.