Gamertell

EA has announced that it will be discontinuing online support for older sports games effective September 1, 2007.  These older sports titles would be rendered redundant, at least, as far as online gameplay is concerned, beginning September 1, 2007. Major sports titles including NHL 06, NBA LIVE 06, FIFA 06, NCAA FOOTBALL 06 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 will go offline.

Racing games Burnout Revenge and Need for Speed Most Wanted will have their online wings clipped from November 1. It will be a complete withdrawal of online support and all versions, both PC and console, will be affected.

At first glance, it seems to be a generic move with most of these games having run their course. But there is a tinge of harmless marketing guile involved. It seems to be a ploy to wake-up gamers who are hooked to these old titles from their sweet slumber and make them buy newer versions. It is ironic that, when game companies are making millions by selling older, arcade style games,  other games are branded too old to support. It is worth mulling that when the current crop of games are sold like classic games a few years down the line, then online play for these games might have to be again offered. Just to drive home the point, imagine that a game like Counter Strike is sold like a classic in the year 2020. Now, you would be hard pressed to imagine a single copy of this game without online play, even if it is sold as a so-called classic game.

Those of you with deep-rooted love for any of these EA titles who might still want to enjoy the online play should consider using Hamachi, which is a popular virtual LAN software that emulates a LAN over the internet. This way you can still compete with gamers from around the world using hamachi. A word of caution, though - do not forget to put your firewalls to the test while using Hamachi.

Read [Game Pro]