According to Joystiq, on August 1st EA shut down the servers for many of its 2005 edition games. EA also announced that additional games will lose support on October 1st. While players will be able to play online in these games until the selected date, EA does mention that "certain community programs may begin to close down prior to the shutdown dates." Some of the games are a bit low on active attendance, but that's beside the point. After all, if you look carefully you can see it is written right there on the box: "With Net Play". Maybe someone should point that out to EA the next time they think about shutting down servers.

When EA refused to join Xbox live for the first 2-3 years the service was online, the excuse was about having control of their games. One of the conditions EA had when they began to support XBL was that they wanted to use their own servers, giving them the power to force upgrades by shutting down old games' servers. Now we know how they exert that control. But NBA Street V3 has only been out for 18 months and removing NFSU 2 seems awfully cheap of them, since a good handful of people don't like Most Wanted as much as Underground.

In truth, this isn't even about the maintenance costs of the service. It's just plain backstabbing marketing strategy, to force potential customers into buying the new sports games due to be released this fall. I was under the impression quality should speak for itself, but instead, EA cuts down on old-style fun. Way to go! Here is the complete list of games that those unfortunate enough to own won't be able to play online anymore.

August 1, 2006 Online Service Shutdown:

FIFA Soccer 2005 for PS2
FIFA Soccer 2005 for Xbox
FIFA Soccer 2005 Demo for Xbox
FIFA Soccer 2005 for PC
EA Sports Fight Night Round 2 for PS2
EA Sports Fight Night Round 2 for Xbox
NCAA March Madness 2005 for PS2
NCAA March Madness 2005 for Xbox
NBA Live 2005 for Xbox
NBA Live 2005 for PC
NBA Live 05 for PS2
NBA Street V3 for PS2
NBA Street V3 for Xbox
NCAA Football 2005 for PS2
Need for Speed Underground 2 Demo for PC
Need for Speed Underground 2 for PC
Need for Speed Underground 2 for Xbox
NHL 2005 for PS2
NHL 2005 for Xbox
NHL 2005 for PC
Total Club Manager 06 for PS2
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 for PS2
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 for PC
UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 for PS2
UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 for PC
UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 for Xbox

October 1, 2006 Online Service Shutdown:

Madden NFL 2005 for PS2
Madden NFL 2005 for Xbox
Madden NFL 2005 for PC
NFL Street 2: Unleashed for PS2
NFL Street 2: Unleashed for Xbox