The Xbox made its debut on November 15, 2001 with the game that dropped me onto a ringworld that took my normally casual gaming to a whole new and competitive level, Halo: Combat Evolved. Exactly one year later Microsft introduced the XboxLive subscription service; a way for you to connect and play with or against people from all over the world as well as download new content straight to the harddrive on the console. The first two months up only saw about 250,000 individual subscribers. In July, 2004, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had reached one million subscribers; in July, 2005, (IMO due to the release of Halo 2) membership reached two million people. As of May 2009 that number has increased to 20,000,000 and is still growing daily. An astounding number of people across the planet are spending their time teaming up with and killing each other via this insanely popular virtual network; everyone in my house has a subscription as a matter of fact.
The bomb was dropped on February 5th, 2010 that on April 15th, 2010, there would be no more XboxLive through original Xboxs or for their games even if played on the Xbox360. 'Tis a sad day for all, a sad day indeed.
As I type this I am in fact gathering my old Xbox games and console for one last hurrah; my copies of Halo/Halo 2, Crimson Skies and Battlefield 2 are going to get played until dawn....or whenever they cut off Live. After that....Halo 2 might come out for campaign nostalgia, but I don't know if I could bear to face it without being able to rip someone to shreds from 50 feet away with a totally bullshit sword swing....ah, the good ol' days....
-Armand
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