Dark Souls 2 Servers Are Finally Closing For PS3 and Xbox 360

gameranx.com:

FromSoftware has revealed that it’s the end of an era for Dark Souls 2 on seventh-generation consoles.

In a tweet from the official Dark Souls account, they shared this message:

“The Dark Souls 2 PS3 and Xbox 360 servers will shut down on March 31, 2024.

A message stating that online play is disabled will be displayed. Offline play will still be possible.

PC, PS4 & Xbox One servers will not be affected.

Thank you to those who have played since launch.”

This is another instance of the slow deprecation of old video games. While fans were able to convince Sony to keep the servers up for the online stores for the PlayStation Vita and the PlayStation 3 indefinitely, the same enthusiasm was not there to convince individual publishers to remove their games, or to pull services like online play, from their older titles.

Some fans may question why removing older games or features is necessary. In theory, keeping these up do not cost that much to the companies. The answer to this isn’t that much different than in other situations.

For most of these game developers, they did not give the rights to their games to the console company, whether that’s Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo. They have to deal with the costs of the upkeep themselves, and that can be bothersome, not so much to the company bottomline, but to the company that has to worry about keeping old games up while making new games.

There are also other mitigating situations. For example, we all know many Marvel licensed games were pulled from sale because the license ran out. Similarly, tons of older racing games, even games that aren’t a decade old, get removed from Steam and other storefronts because their licenses with the car manufacturers ended.

Some people will argue