Microsoft Internet Games Shutting Down on ME, XP, 7

[MrBurgerKing]

Microsoft announced that Internet Games will be shutting down on ME and XP on July 31, and 7 on January 22.
See https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... PSmMUhfgSw

[gtgamer468]

Watch, there will be a homebrew server just for the Internet games for Windows XP up to Windows 7.

[Caveria]

Oh no! I play the internet games from Microsoft since 2010 and they're shutting down! I played them on Windows XP and Windows 7!

[VEG]

Hope, somebody will dump their traffic to reverse engineer the protocol in the future and to create a compatible server. Just to have an ability to use all services of Windows Me/XP/7 on retro systems, to create environment like it's 1999/2001/2009 today =)

[EvanKTC]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[JimOlive]

Hope, somebody will dump their traffic to reverse engineer the protocol in the future and to create a compatible server. Just to have an ability to use all services of Windows Me/XP/7 on retro systems, to create environment like it's 1999/2001/2009 today =)

Well, people were able to make custom servers for Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii. A different beast, but I'm sure if somebody really wanted to, they could create a custom server for Microsoft Internet Games, with hacked versions of the software.

[VEG]

Probably, it would be enough just to add a new record into hosts file (with an IP of compatible server), so “hacking” of the games themselves won't be required.

[VEG]

BTW, what is the "MSN Go"? It seems that it is not preinstalled in Windows 7, and I can't find a video of it on youtube.

[Zv45Beta]

Hope, somebody will dump their traffic to reverse engineer the protocol in the future and to create a compatible server. Just to have an ability to use all services of Windows Me/XP/7 on retro systems, to create environment like it's 1999/2001/2009 today =)

The same thing happened with MSN Messenger

[MCpillager12]

Watch, there will be a homebrew server just for the Internet games for Windows XP up to Windows 7.

Just like for club penguin.

[Maza]

This is unfortunate for players of those games. I would personally be more affected by the loss of the service to retrieve rich box art and game information for the Games Explorer in Windows Vista.

[TheWindowsOtaku]

r.i.p

those were very good days.

[TheRadeonCloud]

Yes, it's a shame that Microsoft had to do this. We'll miss you, classic internet games...

[Sim31]

Ahh some good memories of playing these back then. This is like nostalgia hit, sad to see these services go but honestly I haven't touched these games in years, last time I believe was on Windows Vista.

I think they could of probably implemented these into Windows 10 and then take advantage of the xbox live services and put achievements into it with perhaps live chat and they could of revived/remastered these.

I tried looking up MSN Go and couldn't get no information, only thing it kept pointing towards to is the "MSN Gaming Zone", I remember playing a lot on that back then also, didn't even know it still existed. I could be wrong though and MSN Go might be something else.

[techosarusrex]

I remember playing these games when coming home from school and also while playing I had Windows Live Messenger open talking to my classmates

[Anima]

Is it really taking up that much bandwidth? Hard to imagine it does, so why shut it down?
Anyway I hope someone will be able to port them for offline use.

[mrpijey]

There's more to online services than just bandwidth. There's server upkeep, hardware, security, maintenance, code updating etc etc you need to factor in. And it's not worth it for services that doesn't cover the costs anymore.

If it were only about bandwidth then no one would ever need to shutdown an online server at all since it would be self-maintained.... doesn't work like that.