Shock has spread through the still reasonably vibrant Halo 2 playing community today with the news that all Xbox Live functionality will be switched off for original Xbox games from April 15th this year. An open letter from Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten explained that the change was due to future features being ‘incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games’, besides essentially constituting an advert for Microsoft’s other Live services.

The rumour mill has it that Friends Lists will soon expand beyond that round 100 figure, but it all begs the question, is this really worth the benefit? Technically, Xbox Originals bought today will become partly obsolete within weeks. What do you think about this, the Great British public? Worrying signal of things to come with regard to how much of the games we’re playing now will become obsolete and how soon, or perfectly sensible trimming of older services?