Greenberg: Killing original Xbox Live 'will bring more features to 360'

CVG: Microsoft product director Aaron Greenberg has claimed that the death of Live on the original Xbox will allow the firm to add "more features" to 360's service - adding that MS is "definitely aware" of consumer requests for extended Friends' Lists.

[Chaostar]

Is it me or does Mr Greenburg look like Bill Bailey... just not funny?

On topic: Let's hope that extended friend thing is true, can never have too many :)

[mushroomwig]

Oh my god, you're right!

[Brklynty1]

Sounds like BS to me. Especially with the channel charge rumor. Microsoft just likes to ditch their old products and leave it at that. How about trading Game Room for original Live? God knows nobody plays that thing, maybe people orn in the early 80's, because most 360 owners born after 87' don't even know what half of those games are.

[STK026]

Actually, they've been saying it for quite a while now that the old Live infrastructure was interfering with future development of the "current" Live one. Think of it like Windows, one of Windows' problem is that with each iteration, they're just stacking up new stuff on the old stuff, and they can't just ditch it all without causing major compatibility issues with older software. Or so I believe.

[Boody-Bandit]

title fixed.
Maybe I am overly cynical when it comes to MS and their motives but I can't help but think this is one of the main reasons they pulled the plug. I have no doubts that MS will add more features, because I know they have "claimed" in the past it held back XBL on the 360, but without question there will be an increase in sales for those that have yet to make the jump. <- I feel that is the reason for this move more so than any other.

I just can't help myself but think the worst when I see a Greenburg article. The guy just irritates me. Bring back Moore or find someone of his caliber to give us 360 news! How about allowing Nelson to be your front man MS? That guy is a lot better than Greenburg.

[AAACE5]

I would imagine that cancelling XBL 1 will free up the team that was in charge of it to now work on the current XBL. More people working means more can be done.

At first I thought Game room was a way to bring back arcades. I thought they would have a setup similar to HOME where you could walk around and meet gamers and such. Basicall, start out with the older games like what's there now and move to more recognizable games like Mortal Kombat and such... but I guess we'll find out at some later date! I'll probably find out even later because I don't use Game room.

[Anon1974]

The bulk of the conversation was that they were still paying for XBL, why couldn't Microsoft continue supporting a service they were willing to pay for. These guys hated Halo 3 are were all still active online with Halo 2 and viewed it's multiplayer as vastly superior.

This decision was a bit of a head scratcher for me. Everything was already in place, I can't see that Microsoft was saving any money by shutting the original Xbox down, so it must be strategically motivated. Maybe every orig Xbox player on XBL Microsoft viewed as a player who hadn't bought into the 360 yet and this was their way of forcing their hand. Who knows.

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

Yes, the evil MS. They shut down our service! How dare they? It must be some evil scheme!

... or it could be that a small minority is holding back features to the masses. After all the original Xbox has been supported at least 4 years after its discontinuation. It only sold 24 million worldwide so consider how many still use that service? Especially when we know only roughly half of Xbox 360 owners are paying customers.

I think it is justified that they stopped support for the greater good. At least they didn't just remove a feature as part of the console, but a service and as a service they can change it anytime they want.

I think it is also nice of them to give their customers something in return i.e. free Xbox Live Points, free extra subscription time and even beta access to Halo: Reach.

[PoSTedUP]

i feel bad for those who cant afford this gen consoles and still played xboxlive on xbox. i also feel bad that MS makes you pay for online, and then took away their service that you payed for over the years.

if sony did this with ps3 after ps4 comes out, they could say "well, it was free", and i could understand that.... but cmon MS, you are so good when it comes to being greedy. decency is something yall know nothing about.

[AliTheBrit19]

haha yeah he does a bit

[dabri5]

The answer is dynamic coding.

XBL original had developers hard coding values within their games, for live including friend lists. Values such as the size of your friends list were hard coded into the games. With the 360, they made the live interface/friends list separate. It runs separate from whatever software you are running on the system. This way, anything live related could be updated independently from whatever software was using it. If Microsoft had upped the friends list amount, you would crash games that ran on XBL original. This is also why when you went into a xbox game on your 360, you couldn't see your xbox menu (god the name slips my mind). Anyways, with the way they have it set up now, when the next xbox comes out, I expect 360 games wont run into this issue as again, the service they use can be updated independently from the game.

[-Alpha]

It's been explained that XBL 1 is holding back XBL of this generation. Yes, it will boost sales but that's a bonus for them as the concern is adding more to LIVE for 360.

Personally, I can't wait to have more features. XBL needs more to make their price worth it and to distinguish their features from PSN because PSN has caught up a lot for a free service.

More friends, universal clan system, maybe even recording in-game footage can make up for good new features. They just better not charge for it. XBL Gold subscribers deserve these new features at this point and I sure as hell better not see some Platinum service pop up.

[Lifendz]

I think he meant to say "fees" instead of "features."

[BattleAxe]

Here we go again with these wild claims by Greenberg.

[Cajun Chicken]

Like 'Game Room'! Which charges you EVEN more on top of XBL, a Netfix subscription and Last FM.

TOTALLY WORTH IT.

[Chris399]

I'm not certain what demographic it's targeted at, but it's not me. I barely have time to play the 40 or so titles sitting on my shelf (not including Iphone, DS and PSP games).

I've also logged into Home like maybe twice, so I suppose that's who the service is geared towards. People with vast amounts of time to waste.

[AliTheBrit19]

Do you not see how stupid what you just said is?

It would be like me saying, yeah you could play Bioshock 2 but you would have to PAY MORE to play it wouldnt you?

Wtf? everything you listed there is optional, if people want it, they pay..

[PeptoBismol]

*greenturd FTL

[3sq]

More features?

How about making your exclusive games in HD first?

[Greysturm]

They set a precedent that theyll kill the 360 with their next console, online included which in the case of the 360 its a really big deal as most of its games are based purely on their online component. They could have looked for other solutions but they decided the original xbox wasnt worth remembering.

[Dread]

you have a good point. It is a bad precedent. I hope they do not do the same thing next gen.

I feel the same way about the horrible precedent Sony did when they eliminated BC from the Playstation 3. I mean, is the Playstation 4 not going to play Playstation 3 games?

[NaiNaiNai]

and what about sony...there servers seem to be shut down.

[dragonelite]

You do know that alot of Orignal xbox games have the live thing hardcoded into them. Those games wouldn't have worked if they changed some of the basic thing like friendlists.

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

It is a service and MS can change it any way they want. I think it is ridiculous that people complain about a service shutting down at least 4 years after the original product was discontinued.

You have 4-years to move over to the new service and it's not like they are forcing a higher priced service on you like what phone companies do (nobody is b!tchin about that though). To boot they gave you free points, extra months of Xbox Live and a free Beta to their latest game.

What is bad is when a product you bought has it's feature removed or risk turning it into essentially a brick! That sets a bad precedent. I'm also now wondering about the future of BC....

I would like Xbox Live for the original Xbox to continue as well (since I own a bunch of those titles), but frankly it is unfair for the current paying people that has waited four years for the change.

[BeaArthur]

As long as they are not new paid features.

[Al Bundy]

You mean like Netflix and Game Room?

[Michael-Jackson]

View movies in 576p will be neat.

[Al Bundy]

They'll give you guys more features that are free everywhere else like Facebook and Twitter. They may give you Myspace next.

[kaveti6616]

If you don't like the Game Room then don't pay for it.

And you aren't paying any more for Facebook or Twitter than you were when those features WEREN'T on XBL, so why are you saying that you're now paying for it?

[WetN00dle69]

Yeah more feature ALONG with Price raise as well.

[booni3]

funny u shud say that considering i paid the same amount for my ps3 as my cousin and he has backplay and i dont. Sony wont give us something as simple as a ps2 emulator, which we've been requesting for years now.

[snesfangirl]

wished you would have done a survey on the 360 dashboard or something first. i for one only have around 40 people on my friends list, and i could wein that down a good bit. to me having the option of up to 100 is plenty.

if you would have done a survey asking 360 owners which would they rather have a bigger friends list, or keeping original xbox games live compatible id chose keep the original games, and the original xbox online. i have never felt that having the old xbox online has kept my 360 online experience gimped.

i dont know if it's because their are more users on live now or what, but i been on live since jan 2005, and back then lag was really non existent compared to gaming on live today. i have a 16 mbps connection, and it still lags more than the old games last gen.

don't take me wrong i still love live and its easy to use features, and the feeling of it being an "online community", but the quality when it comes to just gaming online which is all i care about, seems to have went down some since last gen.

i for one don't care about netflix, facebook and all that sh*t, i got live just like i got a 360 and ps3 to play games. if i wanna watch a movie, i'll rent one from the store, and if i was a facebook user, id use it for free on my pc, which is what i'm on now.

when psn gets more "user friendly features" like live, (invites cross game thru xmb, sending voice messages thru xmb etc) then i may switch completely- even if sony charges a little for them. 40 dollars a year for that, plus dedicated servers on first party games, is a lot better than paying 40-50 for live these days, because like i said the whole online gaming experience with live has went down hill some since last gen.

[bviperz]

The answer is money. No need to speculate, this is Microsoft we're talking about. They are just following the tried and true 'Windows' marketing. More features, higher price. I totally expect them to branch out to more levels. Looks like the 'platinum' member service isn't too far fetched.