Friday, February 5, 2010

No more Xbox Live for Xbox1 games (sad)

http://www.qj.net/qjnet/xbox-360/microsoft-pulling-the-plug-on-original-xbox-games-on-live.html

According to the source below, Microsoft has chosen to discontinue Xbox live support for Xbox1 games. This is a sad day for those of us who like to play Xbox1 games on live (or download content for it). While I do agree that Microsoft should look forward to the future and focus on the present, I don't think that it would hurt Microsoft to maintain a separate server for Xbox1 games. Microsoft probably has a good reason for this, but I doubt that it's really good enough. So in the meantime, when I get a chance, I'm going to try and save my downloaded content on my PC using my Debug Xbox if possible. I don't want to lose my Unreal Championship content or the patches I downloaded (because it improves the game's frame rates and gameplay experience). If you can, I'd encourage you to do the same.

"So, what does this have to do with Cxbx?" Not much, but it means that I guess we can forget ever seeing the day that Cxbx will ever access it. This is one reason why I've been working on Unreal Championship so much; to see if we could one day connect to Xbox live. If Xbox live dies, we could probably create some sort of way of faking it for Cxbx and a real Xbox using our own server(s). Not sure how much work that would require, but we'll see once we get an Xbox Live compatible game playable.

I love Xbox1, but I hate Xbox 360. It can never replace my favourite console (of this century).... RIP Xbox Live...

(November 2002 - April 2010)

Shogun.

12 comments:

  1. There I was thinking I'm the only one!

    So how do you feel the 360 has sullied the Xbox1s legacy?

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  2. Hmm... Even to Halo 2? I'm shocked, since Halo 2 still gets quite the few players.

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  3. But hey, at least there is still programs like XLink Kai that'll allow for online play of SysLink Games.

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  4. So I guess now is a good time to sniff and log network traffic then.

    I really like both the original Xbox and the 360, but I still have had more fun with the original :)

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  5. Actually, there are web sites that offer servers for online play. Like back when Halo was popular(Halo 1), they had sites like..(forgot the name) I think it's file planet or something related to that site that offered online play that actually tricked the xbox into thinking it was playing with another xbox (system link). That was a great alternative since it wasn't offered on Xbox Live. Maybe a site could be made with a dedicated server so everyone can play original xbox games online? It's just a thought. ^^;

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  6. Yes, that will of course still work. AFAIK though, there are games which only supports live, and not system link.

    I've played games through XBConnect myself, and a free alternative implementation of Xbox Live would be much more convenient.

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  7. If you come up with a way of emulating Xbox Live, then you have figured out the how a sign-in is authenticated, and a lot of other parts of the system.

    As far as I know, there are no parts to the system that are not encrypted. So that's one hurtling point.

    If anyone puts together a Live server that does everything right, then that could potentially lead to a Live server for both Xbox1s and Xbox 360s. I am not sure Xbox1 uses the exact same authentication system. Microsoft is banning on both consoles regardless for piracy and hacks.

    It has been spoken about in the past about 'emulating' Xbox Live, but no advancements were made as everyone thought it was impossible and now with Xbox 360 perhaps IS impossible on a retail (or even debug) non-JTAG box.

    The problem is the encryption. Maybe Xbox1 is simpler but if you want a dedicated server done faster you're probably going to need to flash/modify whatever (on a box) is required to connect to a specific URL (instead of Microsoft's), and perhaps even modify the XBE files (this might be generic for all) to accept responses from the server differently. This is probably the same problem with XEXs on 360 (along with the NAND and etc), and just as with Xbox1 on a non-modified console, unsigned binaries will not run on a retail console. The hash is in the header from what I recall.

    As far as for an emulator like this, it would be great as while we might need modified XBEs (this is already done in RAM), it does not care about signed or unsigned. And the server does not have to be perfectly the same as Xbox Live.

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  8. While I don't know about setting up servers to mimic xbox live or even accessing xbox live using CXBX, there is an alternative. There's a program called Xbox Connect which basically tricks the Xbox into thinking that it's on a LAN network. You can basically play online LAN games with anyone around the world. It's meant for the Xbox1 though as the Xbox 360 rejects local connections above 30 ping. So even though Xbox Live is going to be shut down for the original xbox games, you can still play online through Xbox Connect. Alternatively, if it's Halo 2 that everyone is concerned with, there's always the option of Halo 2 Vista.

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  9. Yeah, I've used XBConnect before. I really liked it too. The thing about Xbox Live is that it supported DLC, match making and a few other features. I don't think just Halo2 is the biggest concern. There were other games such as Doom3 and I think the other one was CounterStrike which still had some loyal players online. Even though I really like Unreal Championship 1 and 2, it was rare to find anyone online playing it these days.

    I'm sure there is a way to fake Xbox live. If you can circumvent the security and other things like the hard coded DNS, then it's possible IMO. I'm no expert on networking (I still need to finish learning WinSock), but I'm looking into such things for the future.

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  10. I hate Xbox 360 too :´(.

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  11. Of course it is sad that the live online interaction is cut off.many are used to it and love playing it that way.I am quite addicted to xbox games.
    Ps3 accessories

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