What will happen to Xbox gaming on XBL after 360?

[YoshiM]

No doubt, Xbox Live is a pretty cool service. It's true you can get similar service for roughly 1/5 the price (Gamespy Arcade that includes Roger Wilco for only $9.95 a year vs. $49.95 a year for XBL) but XBL doesn't give you some of the hassle of computer gaming networks (hardware speed advantages, for example). Grab an Xbox, hook it up to your cable/DSL modem, maybe configure some settings and off you go.

The downside that I've run into over the years with online PC gaming is also inflicting XBL: games losing support from both fans and companies. The phenomenon is more of the former rather than the latter as gamers drop interest of old games to jump into the arenas of the latest titles. I was an avid Phantom Dust gamer until I could no longer find people to play with.

Now we have the Xbox 360 looming on the horizon with the promise of more intense online gaming thanks to a revamped XBL service. As hype and buzz is running wild about the latest super-hardware I have to wonder: what's the online playing field going to look like for Xbox 1 gamers? Will companies shift their support away from their Xbox online titles? Will there be a number of gamers who will jump ship and move onto the 360 and may not play their old XBL faves (either through choice or because the 360 may not be able to play their fave Xbox game out of the box)? Microsoft is known to practically forget "old" products to get you to upgrade to the latest wares. Are they going to try and pull the same stunt in the console arena?

What do y'all think?

[Mason P.]

I hope that the big "M" doesn't drop the old Xbox like a bad habbit. But saying that, I think alot of people will jump ship to the new system and games.It is sad really that people only want the newest sysem and the newest games. Once a new "great" comes along, they ditch the other game that they swore up and down was so great and that they were never going to stop playing it.

I signed up for Xbox live yesterday. You ask why? Well I figure that there are currently 2 Million people on the service right now.I also think there are ALOT of people that are waiting till the new system comes out to sign on. After hearing that you will be able to transfer your account over the new system, I decided that i should go ahead and get the name i want (or close to it). So I got my name
'i.e. bob smith' instead of 'bob smith155898840'.

[s1lence]

Well considering that the two live services are going to be interchangable for online gaming with the xbox 1 games that are usable on the 360, I see that it will still be used. I also know that there is still going to be games released on the xbox 1 into 06 so it will be around for a little while yet.

[captain nintendo]

I am glad to hear you can transfer over accounts :)
I was worried about losing my name (CaptainNintendo)


You can play Xbox games on the 360 , so I assume you can play those games with peoiple using Xbox on XBL ?

[Neil Koch]

I don't think it will do too much to the more popular games like Halo 2.

With some of the sports/driving games you might see people jumping ship for the prettier-looking 360 version, but I don't think Xbox Live for "regular" Xbox users is going to die anytime soon.

$300-400 is a lot for the average person/family, and I don't think we're going to see a big shift over to the 360 until the price comes down.