Lemmings and World Tour Soccer 2 official PAL servers going offline

[JKKDARK]

via UK PlayStation (http://uk.playstation.com/help-support/ps2/guides/detail/item97821/Support-for-online-game-features/)


Important notice for all PlayStation 2 and PSP owners regarding online games.

As of June 30, 2008 you will no longer be able to use the online features of the following games:

PlayStation 2
Amplitude
Destruction Derby Arenas
Everybody’s Golf
EyeToy Chat
F1 ‘04
Jak X
Lemmings PS2
My Street
Syphon Filter Omega Strain
This is Football 2004
This is Football 2005
Twisted Metal: Black Online

PSP
Lemmings
World Tour Soccer 2

After this date, you will still be able to play them offline, with the exception of EyeToy Chat and Twisted Metal: Black Online, which do not have offline modes.

We would like to thank everyone who has taken part in these PlayStation online communities and hope you enjoyed them.

[wolfpack]

This will be a sad day for ps2 online users

[watupgroupie]

Reminds me of when some of the dreamcast online games went offline like last year. Sad day indeed.

[Psyberjock]

Are you kidding me?!? After the millions they made on that stuff they're already dropping it??

I still play Diablo 2 made by Blizzard (US East realm) and I'm pretty sure that game predates the entire lameass PS2. Well, this truly speaks volumes to me about the superior suckassedness of Sony and the superior dedicatedtotheiruserocity of Blizzard.

Thanks Blizzard.

Bite me Sony.

[Stone Temple Pilots]

Ummm, Blizzard can afford to keep their servers up cause they specialize in online play, and it's no secret that the PC has more online players than the PS2 or PS3.

Sony brings theirs down to cut down on pointless spending on online games that don't even see more than 30 players per game, if that much. I played Syphon Filter Omega Strain all the time so it's sad for me to see it go down, but that's life, nothing lasts forever.

I just won't forgive Konami for taking down the Metal Gear Solid: Subsistence servers. That game actually had over 500 players around when it got shut down (April 2nd 2007).

[Sterist]

wow i never thought they´d take the Amplitude servers down, that game was very well known for online as opposed to offline

i bet it´s because of the bandwidth demands for ps3 games, not to mention PS store and network.

the the servers for RFOM and CoD4 on ps3 have been pretty bad these past few months

[bah]

What utter BS.
If no one is playing most of the time then it costs them bugger all bandwidth/cpu time. Just a tiny bit of HDD space and a bit of RAM.

I can still play quake 1 online because the anyone can run a server for people to connect to.

Companies being able to completely remove the online capability of the game is unacceptable. Especially as they have a vested interest to push you to the latest game.

I've always been weary of EAs main activation servers. Even they don't host the servers I play BF2 on, they still have the power to stop me playing online if they wish.

[Triv1um]

For the PS2 users -

Its damn bad that they take online only games off. So anyone that payed the full price for it, looses all of there value.

[watupgroupie]

Ummm, Blizzard can afford to keep their servers up cause they specialize in online play, and it's no secret that the PC has more online players than the PS2 or PS3.

Sony brings theirs down to cut down on pointless spending on online games that don't even see more than 30 players per game, if that much. I played Syphon Filter Omega Strain all the time so it's sad for me to see it go down, but that's life, nothing lasts forever.

I just won't forgive Konami for taking down the Metal Gear Solid: Subsistence servers. That game actually had over 500 players around when it got shut down (April 2nd 2007).
Maybe they should think about charging for online play like microsoft. $60 a year is peanuts, if you can't afford that, time for a new job.

[ojdon]

I wonder if they're dropping online early so that you get people moving to the PS3 instead of staying on the PS2.

[Buddy4point0]

Sad, yet there is no point in Sony spending money to keep servers online to keep less than 50 people who still play the games online happy.

[Joe88]

indeed

I would never play these games online anyway
only MGS3 which konami took offline over a year ago :(

[Sterist]

Maybe they should think about charging for online play like microsoft. $60 a year is peanuts, if you can't afford that, time for a new job.

woah champ. how about baby steps from being well known as ``free´´

some people have trouble getting new / well paying jobs careers etc, believe it or not, the economy is shrinking.

[Murdock]

Sad, yet there is no point in Sony spending money to keep servers online to keep less than 50 people who still play the games online happy.

This is entire bullshit!

The people have payed for the games and they've also payed for ALL the goddamn features these games offer ... even if only 2 ppl. would use these features, they still had the right to use them ...

It only shows the bad support and the lousy attitude of Sony towards their customers ... another time ...

Sony doesn't care a shit about the ppl. who pay for their overpriced products!

Taking down servers which probably cost Sony less than 100 bucks a year is rediculous ... I guess these things don't even appear on their annual bills ... maybe in the miscellaneous section ... if at all!

1. They don't have to keep coding additional fixes or whatever -> no additional costs

2. These servers don't use much bandwidth, nor much space and computer power -> minor financial factor, I guess not to mention, compared to others

3. the only thing they got to do, I guess, is telling an intern once in a while to restart the ****ing thing ... -> doubt this costs a lot of money :o


Conclusion: $ony once again squeezes the last cents out of their customers by advertizing online services, offering them for a limited amount of time and then taking them down ... rediculous ... I bet u'll get the payback in the next five to ten years ... when no1 is as dumb s to buy ur ****in crappy stuff for a rediculously high prize!

Shame on u fatass, greedy Japanese business jerks at $ony!

[Psyberjock]

Ummm, Blizzard can afford to keep their servers up cause they specialize in online play, and it's no secret that the PC has more online players than the PS2 or PS3.

Sony brings theirs down to cut down on pointless spending on online games that don't even see more than 30 players per game, if that much. I played Syphon Filter Omega Strain all the time so it's sad for me to see it go down, but that's life, nothing lasts forever.

I just won't forgive Konami for taking down the Metal Gear Solid: Subsistence servers. That game actually had over 500 players around when it got shut down (April 2nd 2007).

Diablo 2 is a FREE online game. If you think Blizzard can afford to support a FREE game for longer than Sony can, then you seriously underestimate the size of Sony's bank account. Until World of Warcraft (and possibly even still) Blizzard was peanuts compared to Sony.

Sony can definitely afford to keep their servers online, they just don't want to.

When you buy a game for $60 and it is only playable online, you had damn well better be able to play for as long and as often as you want.

BTW, somethings seemingly do last forever. Diablo 1 and 2 sure are. Even if Blizzard were to stop supporting them on Battle.net, there's still Open Bnet that you can download, or you can play IP2IP. There's lots of ways to play online even if Blizzard decides to stop running their servers. Did Sony do that?