Xbox Live discontinued for Xbox (original) games and hardware.

[Phopojijo]

http://majornelson.com/archive/2010/02/05/xbox-live-being-discontinued-for-original-xbox-consoles-and-games.aspx

Microsoft decided that Xbox 1 games (like Halo 2, etc) are too old and holding back their infrastructure. As a result -- by April 15th, all Xbox games will be removed from the service... EVEN IF played on an Xbox 360.

I'm very leery about OnLive -- not because of the technical aspect -- that can totally work. (Especially if they partner with local telcos... get their big supercomputers in your nearest city in co-location... next to no lag what-so-ever... and easy as heck to link two co-locations together low-latency for multiplayer purposes).

Whenever you get one person controlling your service -- they can just pull the plug at any second.

This is my concern about OnLive -- cut the back catalog, deny the indie developers, and end the 3rd party modifications.

Opinions?

[Tyrokiller]

Well cutting back the catalog shouldn't happen as if they did people would attempt a lawsuit over it. As for the rest, It's bad but I can't really see the indie developers being a problem because like services such as steam they bring in extra revenue for the company and they can just throw their games on the lower tiered servers. (Mainly due to the fact that a good average are of lower quality than the AAA titles)

Well as for modification, I can't really see this happening on onlive unless they decide to allow it to happen or developers of the game choose the content out of a draw and then put it in via themselves. Would take too long to sort all of the modifications for download and would require onlive to screen all of the mod packages so they they don't contain virus's or repeat a previous mod's intention and last but not least cause errors with current mod's on the system.

[Phopojijo]

Well cutting back the catalog shouldn't happen as if they did people would attempt a lawsuit over it. As for the rest, It's bad but I can't really see the indie developers being a problem because like services such as steam they bring in extra revenue for the company and they can just throw their games on the lower tiered servers. (Mainly due to the fact that a good average are of lower quality than the AAA titles)

Well as for modification, I can't really see this happening on onlive unless they decide to allow it to happen or developers of the game choose the content out of a draw and then put it in via themselves. Would take too long to sort all of the modifications for download and would require onlive to screen all of the mod packages so they they don't contain virus's or repeat a previous mod's intention and last but not least cause errors with current mod's on the system.Well the thing is -- cutting back catalog could, and as linked above, has happened to paying subscribers. Not just with Microsoft, but with many DRM-locked MP3 stores, etc. There's legally nothing stopping OnLive, Microsoft, or anyone from cutting a service, or cutting things out of their service.

Obviously modifications won't happen... at least not in any real way. This is what should be scary for developers -- that's where their creativity and future employees come from. (about 90% of what Valve does... for instance... is purchase mod teams -- not to mention Battlefield 2 was created by a purchased mod team for 1942: Desert Combat)

As for indies -- it's not the technical aspects -- OnLive can do anything. Will they, though? You just need to look at the Apple App Store to see how developers can be turned away without any reason what so ever.

You have no recourse for this.

People keep focusing on the technical limits -- those are nothing -- these are the issues that I want more discussion on... the implications of letting one company control your entertainment top-to-bottom... at a time that every other medium is trying to move away from the broadcast model.

[Tyrokiller]

Well I don't have experience with the apple store so I can't really comment on that. Still I can see your point with the catalog back-cutting but the difference here is the fact that this is a streaming company and the rest aren't. If an item is cut back then no-one can use it - not even those that have bought it but other services such as itunes require you to download the items which still means you technically own the software you purchased. (The snag which is DRM is you still have the software but you can't use it - onlive can't hide behind that wall)

The only way around that would be to stop people to downloading it but keep it available to those that already pre-purchased it but then as you have stated there really isn't any laws within this system so we will really have to wait and see how everything turns out.

As for the indie developers no one can be sure if they will support them fully and not cut out later on down the line but the best I can say is that in a few videos steve does welcome them onto the service. Shame about these types of topics is they always end up as "wait and see". ;)