First, Google whittles away at IE6; now, Microsoft itself is cutting off original XBox owners from XBox Live, effective April 15th. Is no 2001 Microsoft release sacred?
The announcement was made by XBox Live Director of Programming Larry Hryb on his blog. ” 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 features.”
How does shutting down a naturally diminished branch of your online media service amount to “unprecedented” flexibility (i.e. “having no previous example”)? Will it finally embolden Microsoft to offer Xbox LIVE Gold service for free? Could it lead to a radical overhaul of the service, more elaborate than 2008’s glorified interface update? Any of those would arguably be “unprecedented.”
Impossible to say, since Microsoft isn’t.
(MajorNelson.com via PCWorld)
