Farewell to Xbox Live

Plus, a banned Xbox ad, the Game Boy GAMEBOOK, Victory Heat Rally, and more!

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This week Microsoft revealed a shakeup of its Xbox Live and Game Pass services. Most notably, from mid-September Xbox Live Gold will be replaced by Xbox Game Pass Core, alongside a few other tweaks.

You can find out more about the changes here, but the main takeaway is that, after more than twenty years, Xbox Live as a name is no more.

It's a name that will be met with great fondness by many. And before it disappears for good, it’s important to remember just what Microsoft’s online service brought to the industry.

Of course, the Dreamcast beat it to the punch. The likes of Phantasy Star Online, Quake 3 Arena and Sonic Team’s ChuChu Rocket! proving that online console gaming could actually work, even on dial-up. The PlayStation 2 supported online play too, albeit in a more slapdash fashion and only via an external attachment.

But Microsoft’s version was different. The PS2’s built-in DVD player may have caused a bigger stir initially, but Xbox’s built-in ethernet port and broadband requirement truly pointed towards the future of consoles. As did the one major thing that separated Microsoft’s online offering from the others; a bespoke, centralised platform to pull it all together.

Xbox Live.

This centralised platform meant a single gamertag could be used across all titles - a way to “build your gaming legend online”, as Microsoft would put it. A single account that worked across every game (well, almost every game. EA took a while to come around) was a powerful thing indeed, and turned what could easily have been a nightmarish mess of disparate accounts and setups into a unified, user-friendly experience.

But it wasn’t easy. That broadband requirement was met with huge scepticism and controversy initially, even from members of the Xbox team and from Bill Gates himself. Back then, broadband tech was unproven and the vast majority of people were still slumming it on dial-up, but the decision was crucial in ensuring Xbox Live worked smoothly.

Online gaming was a new concept for a lot of people, and it had to make a good first impression. The increase in bandwidth provided by broadband made for an incredibly consistent and smooth experience for the time, and future-proofed the service in the fast-moving Wild West that was the still-relatively-early-days of consumer internet.

It was also crucial because Microsoft had made another decision with Xbox Live that would prove divisive; they were going to charge for it. You’ve already bought the game, but if you want to play it online you’ll have to subscribe and pay again. It had to work.

Microsoft’s Xbox Live team was under huge pressure to deliver. And following extensive beta tests in the months beforehand, Xbox Live officially launched in late 2002 and did just that.

The experience released relatively trouble free, and was the start of a bold new beginning for console gaming. The frequency of online games increased over the next couple of years and subscriber numbers grew steadily to greet them. It was a promising start.

But then, Halo 2 happened.

The first Halo is arguably the most important launch title of all time, instantly legitimising Microsoft’s new console and earning instant critical and commercial success. The prospect of Halo (specifically its phenomenal local multiplayer modes) combined with online play ensured the hype for Halo 2 was off the charts.

In November 2004, it launched. Halo 2’s campaign may have split opinion due to its controversial cliff-hanger ending, and the online multiplayer may not have arrived with all of the features Bungie originally set out to include, but it shook the industry when it landed, smashing all of Xbox Live’s player records in the process. And Xbox Live itself, notably – incredibly – didn’t buckle under the strain.

Just as Halo legitimised Xbox as a platform, Halo 2 legitimised Xbox Live as a service. It may have arrived a little late to the party, but it arrived in style, bringing with it features that paved the way for what online gaming on console is today; friends lists, advanced matchmaking, in-game messaging, parties, party chat and more.

This was a pivotal moment for Xbox Live and the industry as a whole, and it only grew from there. Xbox Live launched in 2002 with less than 500 servers. Just over ten years later, before the arrival of the Xbox One in 2013, that number was over 300,000.

But it wasn’t just online multiplayer that came with a fully connected console. Arriving mere days before Halo 2, Xbox Live Arcade allowed users to download full (if small) games directly to the console’s built-in hard drive. Something that felt genuinely thrilling on a console at the time.

A total of 27 games were released on the original Xbox’s XBLA. But the service would really come into its own during the Xbox 360 era, where mini-masterpieces like Geometry Wars, Super Meat Boy, Braid, Fez and Limbo would help kick off a full-scale indie revolution.

It was an incredibly exciting time that introduced features and content delivery the likes of which we take for granted on all of our electronic devices today.

Xbox Live was renamed Xbox Network back in 2021, but with this week’s news that Xbox Live Gold will become Game Pass Core, this is officially the end of the Xbox Live name.

It’s a name that’s been synonymous with online gaming for over two decades. A name that provided a gateway to millions of hours of entertainment, laid the foundations of online play as we know it and changed console gaming forever.

Thanks for the memories, Xbox Live. Your name may be gone, but your legacy lives on.

The good old days

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Phew, that was a long one. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, thank you so much for reading.

Have a great weekend, enjoy your games, and I’ll see you next week.

Jeff

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THE WEEK IN GAMES

The week’s best news and content

NEWS

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MORE!

The GAMEBOOK

Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, GAMEBOOK is now available to buy online for those who missed it. This gorgeous book about the Game Boy is described as “a 280-page tome dedicated to Nintendo’s first portable console with interchangeable software”.

It features a look at “the history and specifics of the platform, accompanied by a hand-drawn timeline, deeper dives with some of the hardware’s best-known games and incredible bespoke artwork”.

If you’re a fan of the Game Boy and of high quality gaming books in general, you can find out more right here.

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Champagne, the banned Xbox ad

Writing the Xbox Live feature for this issue resulted in a bit of a trip down the Xbox rabbit hole. Where I stumbled across an old advert I’d completely forgotten about.

The ad, titled Champagne, featured a baby being born and fired out of a hospital window, before aging rapidly and then landing in, well, you’ll see, to the tagline ‘Life is short. Play more’.

It was aired for a short time and then banned following over 130 complaints. Of course, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and the ad went on to be shared well over 1 million times. Not many by today’s standards, perhaps, but impressive in those email-only days before YouTube came along.

INDIE SPOTLIGHT

Shining a light on noteworthy indies

There’s no shortage of racing games in the world, but not many look quite like Victory Heat Rally. It features 12 characters and 12 cars, 36 stages across 12 different locations, as well as split-screen multiplayer, a host of different game modes and gloriously chunky, cartoon visuals.

Developer Skydevilpalm claims Victory Heat Rally is “giving retro a fresh lick of paint.” Handily, you can find out for yourself by trying out the demo, which is available on Steam right now.

NEW RELEASES

The big releases for this week and next

OUT NOW:

OUT NEXT WEEK:

Pikmin 4 - Out now!

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…and that’s it for this week!

If you have any comments or suggestions, or if you just fancy talking about games, simply reply to this email directly or catch me over on Twitter. I’d love to hear from you! If you’d like to advertise your product or game to The Week in Games’ readers, click here.

Thanks again, and see you next week!

Jeff

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