Woah there folks. Put down your pitchforks and dial down the vitriol. Yes, the headline is true – but it only pertains to the original Xbox, and original Xbox games played on Live.

Come April 15th, owners of the first Xbox will no longer be able to play Halo 2 and…um..whatever else it is people play. These are modern times, and this really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. What is a little surprising is the reason for the discontinuance.

According to Xbox Live’s Major Nelson :

I wanted to let you know that on April 15, 2010 Microsoft will discontinue Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox 1 games playable on Xbox 360. Our first step in this process will be to turn off auto-renewals for those members who only use Xbox LIVE on a v1 Xbox. While I can’t comment on the specifics, this change will allow us to continue evolving the LIVE service with new features and experiences that fully harness the power of Xbox 360 and the Xbox LIVE community. We did not make this decision lightly, but after careful consideration and review we realize that this decision will allow us unprecedented flexibility for future features.

does this mean the Xbox Live friends list will be bolstered to support more than just the 100 people it currently does? Probably, as they’ve always cited the original Xbox Live infrastructure as the barrier. But what else could this herald? Xbox Live does, after all, already support cross-game chat.

Source : Major Nelson