Hurry Up And Play Your Old EA Sports Titles While You Still Can

[ChaseB]

One percent of EA's online users will no longer be able to enjoy 25 older EA Sports titles come March 1, according to a service update posted by EA today. The list of online servers being shutdown in the near future can be seen below.

Mar 1, 2011 Online Service Shutdown

• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 09 for Wii

Feb 8, 2011 Online Service Shutdown

• FIFA 07 for Xbox 360
• FIFA 08 for PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii
• FIFA 09 for PC, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii
• FIFA 09 Ultimate Team for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• FIFA Street 3 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• EA SPORTS™ FIFA Manager 10 for PC
• EA SPORTS™ Fight Night Round 3 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Madden 09 for PlayStation Portable (all regions), PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii
• Madden 10 for PlayStation Portable (all regions), PlayStation 2 and Wii
• NBA LIVE 08 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NBA LIVE 09 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii
• NCAA® Basketball 08 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NCAA® Basketball 09 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NCAA® Football 07 for Xbox 360
• NCAA® Football 08 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NCAA® Football 09 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NCAA® Football 10 for PlayStation 2
• NFL Head Coach 09 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NHL® 08 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• NHL® 09 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 09 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• UEFA EURO 2008™ for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• 2010 FIFA World Cup™ for PlayStation Portable and Wii
• 2010 FIFA World Cup™ Demo for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360

EA's reasoning for shutting down these old titles can be summed up as a desire for more efficient resource management.

Quote:

"Despite some people's perception, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these older games up and running. We would rather our hard-working engineering and IT staff focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99% of customers playing our more popular games."

The marquee title in this list of shutdowns might just be NFL Head Coach 09 because it was the last version to be released by EA. This is also not the first time EA has pulled the plug on older titles; there is quite a list of already unplugged EA games at the bottom of the same service update.

If you are part of the one percent that will soon be out of luck, EA has listed a location where you can contact EA to get more information about these shutdowns. So if you want to find out if your amazing win-loss record in NBA Live 09 will still be able to be seen by the masses, contact EA and find out.

Source: EA announces massive list of online shutdowns (VG247)

[jeremym480]

Makes sense to me. Their focus should be on the new games/servers not the old ones.

[jyoung]

Yeah Head Coach is the only one on that list that should've been kept up.

Maybe FIFA Street 3 since there haven't been any new Street games in a while.

I bought NBA Street a few months ago and was disappointed to see online play was nonfunctional.

[BlackRome]

At least they announce when they are shutting a game down.

2k just cuts it off and tells you nothing. NBA2k10 was disconnected weeks ago.

They don't even respond to the posts on their forums.

[vln13]

Head Coach should be kept up because it doesn't have a sequel. Or does this mean that they are really coming out with Belichick Head Coach 12???

[slickdtc]

I tend to skip years when I buy sports video games, so you'd think I'd be up in arms about this. But I'm not because most of these games aren't the most recent or 2nd most recent. Obviously, HC09 is the exception. So while it sucks for those people who will be affected, I don't think you can really whine too much about it. Most of these games were given a long life.

[MrNFL_FanIQ]

This is the downfall to the gaming industry as a whole being so online based. Eventually a lot of games simply won't have server support, and thus cease being useful for many.

Granted, I didn't even know HC 09 had online play lol.

[22steve]

What online stuff can you do in HC 2009?