7 August 2006

By: Tudor Stefanescu, Games Editor
EA Closes Over 30 Online Servers For Older Titles
Should now games come with a 1-year warranty for online play?
According to Joystiq, on August 1st EA shut down the servers for many of its 2005 edition games. EA also announced that additional games will lose support on October 1st. While players will be able to play online in these games until the selected date, EA does mention that "certain community programs may begin to close down prior to the shutdown dates." Some of the games are a bit low on active attendance, but that's beside the point. After all, if you look carefully you can see it is written right there on the box: "With Net Play". Maybe someone should point that out to EA the next time they think about shutting down servers. When EA refused to join Xbox live for the first 2-3 years the service was online, the excuse was about having control of their games. One of the conditions EA had when they began to support XBL was that they wanted to use their own servers, giving them the power to force upgrades by shutting down old games' servers. Now we know how they exert that control. But NBA Street V3 has only been out for 18 months and removing NFSU 2 seems awfully cheap of them, since a good handful of people don't like Most Wanted as much as Underground.In truth, this isn't even about the maintenance costs of the service. It's just plain backstabbing marketing strategy, to force potential customers into buying the new sports games due to be released this fall. I was under the impression quality should speak for itself, but instead, EA cuts down on old-style fun. Way to go! Here is the complete list of games that those unfortunate enough to own won't be able to play online anymore.August 1, 2006 Online Service Shutdown:FIFA Soccer 2005 for PS2 FIFA Soccer 2005 for Xbox FIFA Soccer 2005 Demo for Xbox FIFA Soccer 2005 for PC EA Sports Fight Night Round 2 for PS2 EA Sports Fight Night Round 2 for Xbox NCAA March Madness 2005 for PS2 NCAA March Madness 2005 for Xbox NBA Live 2005 for Xbox NBA Live 2005 for PC NBA Live 05 for PS2 NBA Street V3 for PS2 NBA Street V3 for Xbox NCAA Football 2005 for PS2 Need for Speed Underground 2 Demo for PC Need for Speed Underground 2 for PC Need for Speed Underground 2 for Xbox NHL 2005 for PS2 NHL 2005 for Xbox NHL 2005 for PC Total Club Manager 06 for PS2 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 for PS2 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 for PC UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 for PS2 UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 for PC UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 for XboxOctober 1, 2006 Online Service Shutdown:Madden NFL 2005 for PS2 Madden NFL 2005 for Xbox Madden NFL 2005 for PC NFL Street 2: Unleashed for PS2 NFL Street 2: Unleashed for Xbox
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