Do you enjoy playing Halo 2 online against your friends and rivals?  If so, then you'd better enjoy it while you still can.  Microsoft has announced that it will be discontinuing Xbox Live support for all classic Xbox games as of April 15, 2010.  This also applies to those of you who play older Xbox games on your Xbox 360s with the original discs or from the downloadable Xbox Originals line. Kotaku has the statement.  Here's a piece of it:

Seven years ago we laid out our vision for the connected console when we launched Xbox LIVE. We believed then that the power of the Internet to connect people would revolutionize living room entertainment. It started with amazing multiplayer games, and we've since seen that bet pay off again and again with the launches of Xbox 360, Marketplace, Netflix and powerful social features like Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm. None of this would have been possible without the success of LIVE as a multiplayer gaming network.

There's no greater example of the power of the Xbox LIVE community than the "Halo" franchise. "Halo 2" has had an amazing run on LIVE, with a dedicated community more than five years after launch and well into the next generation of consoles. It has fundamentally changed the way we play video games. And while it's difficult to see that run come to an end, the "Halo" franchise continues to act as the benchmark for multiplayer gaming in this generation, with "Halo 3," "Halo 3: ODST" and soon "Halo: Reach" on Xbox 360.

Electronic Arts shuts down a few dozen older sports titles and people shrug and say "Well, they are old."  Capcom turns off some Sony PlayStation 2 Resident Evil online game and people shrug and say "Well, nobody played PS2 online."  The original Xbox Live goes dark though?  If this doesn't bring players into the streets with torches and pitchforks over older online multiplayer console games being discontinued, nothing will.