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Halo Xbox 360 services are going offline in December 2021

Deleted member 5745

Account closed at user request
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,429
www.halowaypoint.com

Halo News - Sunsetting Halo Xbox 360 Game Services in 2021

In approximately one year, December 2021, online services for legacy Halo Xbox 360 titles will be discontinued in order for 343 Industries to fully focus on the future of the franchise. Owners of these titles will still be able to play these games indefinitely but some experiences will be...
www.halowaypoint.com www.halowaypoint.com

To date, we've juggled future-facing work and priorities with continued upkeep of Halo's Xbox 360 legacy services. Maintaining these legacy services today requires significant time and resources which directly impacts the studio's ability to support current and future projects like Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Halo Infinite.

Meanwhile, the month over month usage of these legacy Xbox 360 game services continues to dwindle, creating an even greater imbalance between the time and work required to maintain vs. the net impact to the overall Halo community. That's not to say we don't value and care about everyone who plays Halo – we absolutely do. But, as with any business, our teams must continually weigh needs against available resources (time, people, expertise, etc.) and prioritize on areas and opportunities that yield the greatest impact. As these games continue to age, and as improved modern replacements for many of these experiences have moved to the forefront, less and less people are investing time in the original legacy titles. Digital sales have greatly slowed and physical sales of these legacy Xbox 360 titles were halted back in 2018.

Every cycle spent maintaining and supporting Xbox 360 legacy services is time and energy not spent on the future of Halo. To that end – today we are announcing our intention to sunset our Halo Xbox 360 legacy services to fully focus on the future of the franchise. In approximately ONE YEAR, December 2021, online services for legacy Halo Xbox 360 titles will be discontinued. Owners of these titles will still be able to play these games indefinitely, however, certain online features and experiences, particularly online matchmaking, will be limited or disabled.

We are intentionally moving slowly and deliberately with a multi-phase approach to provide our players with plenty of advance notice:

Phase One – Fall 2019
  • One-time migration of over 6M pieces of Halo Xbox 360 Legacy UGC data to Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Phase Two – December 2020 (WE ARE HERE)
  • Initial notification to players
  • Digital sales of Halo Xbox 360 titles are halted
  • *Halo Xbox 360 DLC can still be acquired at no cost
Phase Three – 2021
  • Continued messaging and reminders throughout the year across Halo channels
Phase Four – December 2021 *(TBD, no sooner than 1 year from the date of today's blog)
  • Halo Xbox 360 legacy services are turned off
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DOES THIS ALSO APPLY TO 'BACK COMPAT' VERSIONS OF THESE GAMES ON XBOX ONE / XBOX SERIES X/S?
Yes – even via back-compat play on a newer console, the underlying software is still the original Xbox 360 content and thus still relies on legacy online services for some functionality. The player experience once we sunset services will be the same regardless of whether you're playing on an Xbox 360 or via back compat.
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crazillo

crazillo

Member
Apr 5, 2018
8,184
I see no problem here with the MCC being around. The long-term support has actually been very good and they're informing people early, too.
 
GameChanger

GameChanger

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,935
The end of an era. I am so glad their more recent consoles all support Halo games. I would be sad but my 360 died a while ago.
 
bsigg

bsigg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,556
The Halo 3 servers have been up for 14 years. I think it's time.

Also, MCC is in a phenomenal place now.
 
Cranster

Cranster

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,788
Damn it. How am I going to juggle these achievements, the grindvto sr152 and ongoing MCC seasons at the sametime.
 
wwm0nkey

wwm0nkey

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,575
I would be more upset if MCC didn't exist in the state it does now. But damn man, end of an era.
 
Van Bur3n

Van Bur3n

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
26,089
Ain't anything gonna match this.




Y'all got one year to become a vidmaster and actually earn your Recon armor. You can wear it all you want after they just handed it out, BUT YOU DIDN'T EARN IT.
 
Mukrab

Mukrab

Member
Apr 19, 2020
7,506
crazillo said:
I see no problem here with the MCC being around. The long-term support has actually been very good and they're informing people early, too.
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Even if MCC wasnt around i dont think this wouls be a big deal. They left them on for a whole generation. Plenty of other companies shut them off after 2 or 3 years if the playerbase is small. Didnt even sony do that with driveclub not too long ago?
 
MouldyK

MouldyK

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
10,118
I like how Custom Games are sticking around.

And Halo Wars Matchmaking don't die.
 
Chettlar

Chettlar

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,604
So...shit's already delisted? Are you serious?

Would have liked to grab a digital copy of ODST. They talk about long notice but can't even give us that notice?
 
Musubi

Musubi

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
23,611
I didn't realize the games had actual servers I thought they were all just P2P.
 
Skel

Skel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,030
France
One year, that's still plenty of time, good. Far better than most developers warning you a few days before closing their servers.
 
Trey

Trey

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,006
Van Bur3n said:
Ain't anything gonna match this.




Y'all got one year to become a vidmaster and actually earn your Recon armor. You can wear it all you want after they just handed it out, BUT YOU DIDN'T EARN IT.
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I will never forget how Bungie gave out the first set of Recon to somebody because they file shared a video of them accidentally killing someone with a traffic cone.
 
canderous

canderous

Prophet of Truth
Member
Jun 12, 2020
8,691
Remember when the OG Xbox Halo 2 servers were shut down and you had those handful of people staying in game as long as possible? Until eventually it was just 1 guy still connected.

Found an article

www.cnet.com

Last Halo 2 player finally leaves Xbox Live

After refusing to log out for more than three weeks, the last person in Xbox Live on an original Xbox succumbed. Multiplayer Halo 2 is no more.
www.cnet.com www.cnet.com
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,362
Seems fine. There are adults now who were four year old toddlers when Halo 3 servers were online.

The games are still available to play, just via the MCC now which, thankfully, isn't utterly broken anymore.
 
VariantX

VariantX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,887
Columbia, SC
Id be sad about this if not for the fact that MCC exists and they fixed it...and its going to have mod support and its full of features the old games could only dream of. I'll assume if people really must absolutely play the old versions, they'll find a way to make it happen.
 
Jaaake

Jaaake

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
2,215
Australia
End of an era.

Kinda. We really need a toggle for those ugly ass armours they're adding to H3 in the MCC so we can play it as was originally designed.
 
GlitchyDegree

GlitchyDegree

Prophet of Truth
The Fallen
Dec 4, 2017
5,489
End of an era. Halo 3 was one of my first (& still one of my favorite) online games. At least we have MCC but I'll miss the days of playing 3 on 360.
 
Navidson REC

Navidson REC

Member
Oct 31, 2017
3,425
Good night sweet prince. Halo 3 in particular was just such a special time for me.
Van Bur3n said:
Ain't anything gonna match this.




Y'all got one year to become a vidmaster and actually earn your Recon armor. You can wear it all you want after they just handed it out, BUT YOU DIDN'T EARN IT.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Doing the vidmaster challenges was just the best man, super fond memories
 
MistahS

MistahS

Prophet of Truth
The Fallen
Sep 2, 2018
3,734
End of an era. RIP. Luckily there's the Master Chief Collection.
CMLi.gif
 

DJKippling

Member
Nov 1, 2017
923
RIP Reach, the reach multiplayer on MCC sucks ass. seems very different to what i remember on 360 at least.
 
darthbob

darthbob

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 20, 2017
2,017
Gonna be a repeat of H2 days where we have stragglers staying online? :D
 

Deleted member 8118

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
3,639
Simply Sami said:
Are PGR 3 servers still up?
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PGR 3 and 4's servers aren't up, but you can still join player-hosted games. I think there may be some old screenshots floating around the game.. I miss PGR so much..

In fact, I just miss the community of the Xbox 360. I met so many great people and had such a great time playing with friends in real life.

I know this has likely been said before, but the Xbox 360 and PS3 had such interesting community dynamics - the Xbox One, PS4, Xbox Series X and PS5 just feels dull in comparison - even PC gaming felt more communal. I guess it was just one of the few hubs you could actually communicate with one another.

With the likes of Discord, Teamspeak, Twitch, Facebook Gaming, YouTube, everyone has just parted ways.

Feels weird to say, but that era of gaming influenced a very important time of my life.
 
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criteriondog

criteriondog

I like the chili style
Member
Oct 26, 2017
11,127
I was never into Halo, but this is an end of an era for 360. I wonder if eventually Microsoft will begin sunsetting Live for 360 (as well as Sony)? Maybe in 2022 or 2023?
 
Hardvlade

Hardvlade

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
2,444
Damn, I would've loved to have a chance to grab the OG 360 versions digitally, (Halo CE, ODST and Halo 4). It's all good though, glad to see there's a years heads up to clean up the achievements
 
2Blackcats

2Blackcats

Member
Oct 26, 2017
16,073
A shame but hard to complain too much with a years notice and such long support.

I hope we get to a point where this no longer happens. Some magic virtual server technology that spins up as required.
 
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