UPDATE: “Xbox Live won’t go away.”
UPDATE 3/23/21: In a statement to Eurogamer this morning, Microsoft explained the recent brand change to its underlying online infrastructure. In short, the Xbox’s new wording is more “descriptive,” the company said, and none of the systems, signatures or anything else you actually use has been changed.
“Xbox Live is not going to go away,” Microsoft told Eurogamer. “We are making ongoing adjustments to create a simpler and more descriptive messaging system for the Xbox in different areas. None of these experiences or features will be changed as part of these updates.”
ORIGINAL STORY 3/22/21: Microsoft is renaming Xbox Live, its online multiplayer and digital media delivery service, to ‘Xbox network’, a move it says will help distinguish it from Xbox Live Gold.
The name Xbox Live has been in use since the service’s debut with the original Xbox in 2002. However, signs of an impending brand change – which Microsoft denied at the time – surfaced last August, when the name was removed from its Service Agreement updated in favor of ‘Xbox online service’.
Now, however, with users noticing the removal of the Xbox Live nickname in Microsoft’s recent Xbox dashboard beta, the company has made the brand change to ‘Xbox network’ official.
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“‘Xbox Network’ refers to the underlying Xbox online service, which has been updated in the Microsoft Services Agreement,” a Microsoft spokesman told The Verge in a statement.
“The upgrade from ‘Xbox Live’ to ‘Xbox network’ aims to distinguish the underlying service from Xbox Live Gold subscriptions,” he continued.
Xbox Live Gold made headlines earlier this year when Microsoft announced an increase in the price of the subscription service.
The move was heavily criticized, emerging amid a pandemic and a global financial crisis, and the decision was quickly reversed, with Microsoft also announcing that it would finally make free games playable without an Xbox subscription.