True story: We're currently listening to "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam. Seriously. No joke. You know, the one with the chorus "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye." You used to sing it at your high school football games when the other team was getting crushed.

 

Let's all sing it together: "Xbox Live, Xbox Live, hey hey hey, goodbye." There you go. Art imitates life after all.

 

That's right.  April 15 won't just be Tax Day, it will be the day Microsoft pulls the plug on Xbox LIVE services "for its original Xbox, as well as online services for Xbox games playable on the Xbox 360," according to industry observer Matt Peckham. He cites Microsoft's (News - Alert) Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb's blog, saying the shutdown "will commence with immediate discontinuation of auto-renewals for gamers still subscribed to the service through an original Xbox."

 

"While I can’t comment on the specifics, this change will allow us to continue evolving the LIVE service with new features and experiences that fully harness the power of Xbox 360 and the Xbox LIVE community," Hryb wrote.

 

Toward the end of January The New York Times reported that the Microsoft users are seeing Xbox "not merely as a gaming machine for teenagers, but as a media portal for parents and grandparents, too."

 

Seriously, Microsoft has plans, big plans for Xbox Live. Betcha didn't know there's a show produced for it, 1 vs. 100, described by the Times as "an interactive version of a game show that was on NBC." Microsoft is even talking with Disney about a programming deal with ESPN (News - Alert) for a per-subscriber fee, presumably where ESPN could stream sports to the channel a la ESPN 360.

It's not a bad concept. As TorrentBomb correctly points out, "there are a lot more of us who watch TV than game. And gaming consoles, already present in many households, are reasonable platforms for streaming media from the Internet."

Ben Patterson, The Gadget Hound, said were the ESPN deal to go through, "it would represent a big chunk of live streaming sports 'over the top' of big cable and satellite, not to mention a coup for the Xbox Live marketing department."