Xbox Live for Xbox 1 officially killed

By Tom Bramwell Published 15 April, 2010

Bungie says goodbye to Halo 2.

Microsoft should by now have officially discontinued Xbox Live support for original Xbox consoles and games.

The service was due to be switched off at midnight PDT, i.e. about 20 minutes ago.

As a result you can no longer play Xbox 1 games online in any way - not using an original Xbox, nor by playing a backwards-compatible title on Xbox 360, or even by downloading an Xbox Originals effort.

Hardest hit by this is Halo 2, which has sustained a decent following since its spectacular November 2004 launch. (Read our extensive farewell, The Making of Halo 2.)

Bungie and fans got together to give the game a proper send-off yesterday, and the developer even published thank-you messages, which you can check out in Kotaku's gallery.

"To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games," was what Microsoft's Marc Whitten said about the decision to shut down Xbox 1 support when it was announced.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Jonathan_Fakenham #1 2 years ago

    Nah. Giantbomb's livestream sendoff is still live.

    I've been wondering though. Does this shutdown affect Original Xbox patch downloads and playability on the 360 in any way?
    Edited by 1 at 15/04/10 @ 08:32

  • ZuluHero #2 2 years ago

    Goodnight Sweet Prince....

    /Sniff

  • Whizzo #3 2 years ago

    Goodbye old Live, you served us well but you're holding everyone back now, you know what to do.

    /places glass of whisky and revolver on table and leaves

  • matrim83 #4 2 years ago

    Played a bunch of H2 games yesterday. Bungie's promise about new bling in Halo Reach must have worked cause there were a LOT of people playing it yesterday. Took mere seconds to find a game. Even in an 8v8 Playlist.

    Anyway, fitting goodbye to the game that made online console gaming.

  • davisorle #5 2 years ago

    Even though I havent touched the old xbox nor Halo 2 for years I still feel some short of sadness over this. Halo franchise over Xbox/XBL proved how an FPS is meant to be played solo, co-op and online on consoles.. Thank God for Halo 3+ on the 360 and lets hope for Reach to be a worthy sequel for the franchise ( even if chronically placed before Halo 1 ).

    Ty.

  • bad09 #6 2 years ago

    A real shame, still luckily the only game I still want to play (Battlefront 2) had no players on Live anyway so I bought the better PC version.

  • lavalant #7 2 years ago

    Miss those good old early days of xbox live, playing moto gp, wolfenstien, the awesome PGR2 and of course Voice Masks which old live games always had and you got kicked out of games for using them.

    Going to miss Chaos Theory, one of the best online games I've played, had a bit of a learnig curve but once you put the effort in you realised how well it was designed. The closest experience is Versus on l4d, but on a much more sophisticated level.

  • harzo #8 2 years ago

    My first ever Xbox Live experiences were Crimson Skies and Midtown Madness 3... good times!

  • mcmonkeyplc #9 2 years ago

    Bye bye Halol 2 you served us well but you were the shittest of your brothers. Perhaps a typical middle child, always trying to live up to your older brother, never quite managing it and then your younger brother comes along and does it without even trying.

    /aims Spartan Laser

    R.I.P

  • grimly_reaped #10 2 years ago

    lol - quality investigative journalism!

    "Microsoft should by now have officially discontinued Xbox Live support for original Xbox consoles and games." ... but we haven't checked yet.

  • metalangel #11 2 years ago

    When do we get the bigger friend list then?

  • matrim83 #12 2 years ago

    Oh BTW some excellent "Did you know" sidenotes on H2 yesterday night. Quite a few of them made me chuckle. :D

  • Sunyavadin #13 2 years ago

    Spent last night playing a load of Halo 2 games, well worth it, and I loved the loading screen messages like "Tired of annoying players? Use the mute func- oh wait, it hasn't been invented yet", "You know what'd make this game better? LASERS", "SMG starts - we admit it, it was a bad idea" and my personal favourite: "BXR Yes. It is cheating."

    Looks like it's over to private servers from now on. Shame there's no way to redownload the fourth map pack now. Good thing I have the DVD of the other three. It'd be nice if Bungie released an iso for a version of the map pack dvd that included it.

  • Eraysor #14 2 years ago

    I'm going to miss Unreal Championship 2 multiplayer more than anything; that game was a masterpiece.

  • Ranger101 #15 2 years ago

    :*( No more Street Fighter 3rd Strike online. Curse you Microsoft, you killed Capcom's greatest achievement....... No I don't mean that I love you XboxLive. Hold me.
    Edited by 1 at 15/04/10 @ 09:54

  • AphoticCosmos #16 2 years ago

    Had to happen some time, but I'm sorry to see it go.

  • coolbritannia #17 2 years ago

    Xbox1 live died with steel battalion. Farewell old friend.

  • TheLittlestHobo #18 2 years ago

    It's still up and the poor GiantBomb guys are still trucking.

  • agentk1986 #19 2 years ago

    A lot of good memories playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live back in early 2005, even if it did frustrate me many times because of little kids screaming in the mic. Very little lag, great vehicles, and fun Capture the Flag= good times.

    IMO the Splinter Cell games and Halo 2 were reason enough to own an Xbox. From about 2001-2005 was just great for video games all around.

  • RobotRocker #20 2 years ago

    Noooooo. My Outrun 2 Leaderboard scorer ;_;

    Farewell Live. You may be to blame for the widespread application of Gabe's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory but you still had Crimson Skies on live.

  • the_dudefather #21 2 years ago

    it's still alive right now, Giant bomb just give up on the live stream (it's past 4am for them)

  • darleysam #22 2 years ago

    I managed to get one last game in this morning before work, as well as a couple last night. So long Halo 2, we had some good times old friend.

  • coolbritannia #23 2 years ago

    What a lovely comments thread. Feel the love guys.

  • rarehobo #24 2 years ago

    So i guess we will see Halo 2 as a game on demand with new live support for the 360?

  • metallicorphan #25 2 years ago

    had some great games of Star Wars Battlefront 2 last night....people were actually all talking and having a good laugh,and then it reminded me that that's what XBL used to be like...i miss those days,now all i hear is silence through the headset on more recent games

  • Syrette #26 2 years ago

    Rest in peace.

  • GaryHoward #27 2 years ago

    I want another Big Team Battle right now...but I can't! :'( . Oh well, rest in peace Halo 2.

  • page360 #28 2 years ago

    no more bans on xbox 1

  • Oceadge #29 2 years ago

    For the last three weeks I have been trying to play Halo 2 online with my 360 but was told I was missing a map...unfortunately I couldn't get one of the four map packs available to complete downloading. Alas, I'll never get to experience it.

  • Retroid #30 2 years ago

    There's always Xlink Kai for those willing to jump through the hoops - works with all system-link enabled games.

  • CASE #31 2 years ago

    RIP

  • EmiliasHorse #32 2 years ago

    Farewell Xbox online, I dread to think of the hours I spent on Halo 2 & PGR2.

  • Mnia786 #33 2 years ago

    I find it amazing that they take down something which pockets MS at-least a billion quid a year. How long after the 360 will they shut down Live for 360? I know not loads of people play XB1 now but will be disappointing to those who still do - plenty of people still play the PS2, just a pity MS releases forgetware.

  • brod #34 2 years ago

    If anyone still wants to play Halo 2 you can do so with the PC version.