Very sad. As an XBMP user from back in the day, and still using XBMC on the original xbox, thank you xbmc team.

My world is crashing down around me. I was just thinking about doing my yearly update and BOOM this hits me in the face.

Well … I guess it had a good run. I’ve been using XBMC daily since about 2003. Time to get an htpc.

Thank You for all your hard work all of the XBMC team had put into this project.
The xbox is still my main htpc and soon it will be replaced. Letting go is hard, but we know that we must in order for a bigger and better future. The Xbox’s limits are well known and its time has come.

Thank you so much XBMC for making an incredible platform and I hope you will make it even more incredible in the future.

I wanted to thank ALL of the developers and supports and pretty much every single person involved with this. I loved this on my Xbox and will continue to do so. It truly has been a great run with a great community.
However we all have to admit the Hardware is def reaching it’s limits. I still use my Xbox for EasyNews Streamer (chokes on some files) and I still use it to watch networked movies in HD Divx, YES IT CAN BE DONE STAXRIP!!!!!!

Thank you thank you thank you. Because of this project, when I eventually retire the Xbox, I will be moving forward with hardware that is XBMC complient!! YOu all rock

great, the xbox specific parts where troubling my first experiences with xbmc… e.g. needed a shortcut to a but the explained feature only works on the xbox. Cleaning this code en wiki entries will help beginning xmbc users.

farewell. yes my kids still use it everyday. it’s the oldest still functional hardware i have. tinkering with xbmc and the old xbox literally taught me so many things.
now my dedicated htpc is just as fun. But quieter, prettier and can play 1080p like a champ.

long live arnova! long live xbox!

oh man the good times, xbmc for the original xbox was the first “hack” i ever preformed. doing the hotswap to unlock the hard drive, oh the memories. thank you for all your support, because of you i have branched out and am now working on many projects, but xbmc will always be my first. till the day my xbox dies, it shall always be the place in my house where the family can come together and watch some movies.

Thanks for turning my old XBOX into something truly great. like most… i still use it every day…day by day. the kids (4 and 6) know how to navigate and use it to play all their TV shows and movies.

Thanks for all the work that went into it! you guys are still the coolest!

Removes xbmc.org from bookmarks it now obsolete.

XBMC is what got me into moding and tinkering in general… I don’t know where I would be today without it.

Theres life in the old girl yet over at XBMC4XBOX

@Otto, @Pno4

WTF with the apparent hate? Did you really think Xbox support would continue forever? There’s nothing more to do on the Xbox platform. It’s been as complete as it can get save for bugfixes for quite some time. It’s like some Windows Server admins I’ve heard complaining about Server 2008 R2 being 64 bit only. You’ve had years to get on a more modern hardware platform, no one has any obligation to continue supporting older gear when it is limiting future development. This also doesn’t mean your XBMC install will break tomorrow or anything, just that if you want any new builds or support you need to go elsewhere.

Thanks for all the kind comments guys. I still have an xbox tucked away in the closet – it was good times, but things move on and I think we can all agree that XBMC has moved on majorly in the last 24 months or so. Who’d have thought back then that we’d be up and running on tiny, low power machines such as nVidia’s Tegra 2 or the IONs, with full hardware acceleration on all 3 major platforms, plus a dedicated hardware decoder card for the AppleTV.

As a gesture of good will to the new devs, once Arnova has sorted out the new dev team I’d be honored to ship my xbox your way :)

spiff :
@Jolmash
this is just funny. i’ve worked on this project since 2004 (yes, i did a lot of shit on the xbox as well). i consider myself one of the main devs of xbmc. and it is truthfully, really, a case of ‘and all i got was this friggan t-shirt’. that’s all xbmc ever earned me in terms of physical goods.
however, there are good news. we will, as always, perform all our stuff out in the open, so next year you can have a look at our annual accounts. maybe that can shut confused souls as yourself up.

PWN3D

I too started with XBMP, then XBMC for the xbox before moving on to Live on a Zotac ION board this March when my xbox DVD drive stopped working and the HD started acting funny. Thank you to all those involved with the project over the years.

And to those getting all emo over this decision, how long do you think it makes sense to support outdated hardware. Babylon didn’t even officially support Xbox, and with all the new stuff coming in 10.5 do you think it’s even reasonable to expect support for hardware that’s almost a decade old? Complain to EA that Crysis can’t run on your Pentium II then.

Otto :
So, in other words, I now have no reason to use XBMC any more.
Fair enough. Goodbye forever.

Does it not work for you right now or something?!?

@Greif
goodbye… probably wasn’t contributing anything anyway

The run has been great, and I still run 4 original xbox’s in my home. This is our only form of video entertainment. I can’t say how much I appreciate all the crew that mad xbmc possible over these many years. The tears start to grow as I type this, but I guess as all good things they grow into better ones.

Thanks again.

Although I moved on to an HTPC quite some time ago I’ll never forget how impressed I was seeing XBMC on a friend’s XBOX for the first time. I bought an XBOX especially for XBMC after that and it has been one of the best investments I ever made. It introduced me to a wonderful project made by a group of very talented people and with an awesome community. It has been time to move on for a while now, so this is understandable. I can’t wait to see where XBMC will take us next.
People who who get angry about this should really ask themselves what they have contributed themselves and be grateful for what they have been given for free and been using for years. The XBOX version is still here, and it will be there in the future. If it’s working well for you now, what’s there to be angry about? You can’t expect a 10 year old device to be pushed forward forever. Are you angry at game developers for not releasing XBOX1 games anymore too?
Thank you XBMC developers, past and present, for years of dedication.

Sad and glad…been a user since early XBMP and still run 3 xbox1s at home…thanks for your ingenuity and innovation, you should be satisfied that you have changed the world! I am actively searching for a HD player that will run XBMC and playback BlueRay Disks :)

Well I suppose it had to come. I recently just got a new XBOX as my last one died. After the hassle I had getting a chip I did wonder how long this path had left in it (i’m not a softmod fan). Having said that I have tried Live/Linux/Windows and even boxee and am still not sure I want to leave for them yet.

Sure if you never used the XBOX why would you think to use it but call me old fashioned if you like but it seems to work better for me than the alternatives. What does that say about the alternatives? A little way to go yet perhaps?
Long live XBOX XBMC

I tracked down Trusty and he does XBox boards with upgraded RAM and CPU (this will not improve your HD playback). Works a treat for MAME of course.
There’s a little mileage left in it yet I’d say.

This is not a time for mourning, it’s an opportunity to look back and smile with affection thinking of the nice memories of the early days and acknowledge life is adjusting to change… Xbox for XBMC is definitely not going die, not as long as people use it, maintained by Team XBMC or Arnova and and people that might join in.

“we will be making the XBOX section of our forum read-only on Monday, June 07″

Head over to http://xbmc4xbox.org, there’s plenty of Xbox users already there – there’s changes going on for Xbox code, there’s plugins and scripts development for Xbox (I know I developed mine with Xbox in mind, although they might work on other platforms), people are adjusting skins for Xbox, there’s people modding the boxes and so things might not look that bad for the near future.

Thanks for everything, Team XBMC (current and previous members)!!! XBMC was the reason I got my Halo Xbox in the first place, and modding it later on, it was an amazing thing and those were exciting times. But now it’s time to move on, so we’ll give it our best shot…

It is sad to see development stop for the XBox but I must say it is about time.

I stopped using my XBox as a media device almost 3 years ago when more and more things were moving over to x/h264. The Xbox really could not handle this format at all because of its lack of CPU power. Especially when dealing with 720/1080 content.

Does this mean I swore off XBMC? Hell no! I currently use it as my player of choice when my Mac Mini is hooked up to my 46″ TV. And it will be as long as the project stays alive.

RIP XBMC. LONG LIVE XBMC!

I just wanted to join all the other voices in appreciation of all the hard work your team has done over the years. XBMC has been an amazing liberation from the mainstream constraints of content use.

XBMC has always and will continue to be, albeit on my Linux box and HTPC, my platform of choice for media use.

Fantastic Work – Vive La XBMC!

One question: WHY?

I understand the Xbox has limitations, but for what it is it does it’s job very well. For less than $50 you have a device that can connect to a network and stream any media and looks appropriate in a living room while working easily with a remote. Can any other device make that claim?

Can users at least have a vote? Seems most the comments on here and Lifehacker would like to see support continue.

If some developers would like to support other devices like the Mac Mini then perhaps they should spin-off and make the 3MC (Mac Mini Media Center). I think dropping the Xbox from the Xbox Media Center is injustice to the entire XBMC community.

@defendor
Please read everything again. It will continue, we won’t go out and destroy what you have installed. You can’t vote since you can’t force developers to do something they don’t want to. That being said, it is free and open source software if you wish to support it, please do, _none_ is stopping you. There is little point having it in our subversion and have the illusion of it being supported, since there is only one developer working on it and it has diverged far from the other versions already, it is better suited as a seperate project were its easier to move forward (for both projects).

I’ve been using XBMP and XBMC for many years now and it is a major part of the way I watch TV at home for my wife and I. I still use 2 old xbox’s and we love it. I figured that the xbox version wouldn’t last much longer as the project was just getting too big for it, but I’m glad to hear that it’s not going away entirely. I’m sad and happy at the same time because this will allow XBMC to further prosper on other platforms without being held back by some older hardware limitations. I will use XBMC on PC and continue to love it and I will use the Xbox version of whatever XBMC becomes. I always have the version of XBMC I’m running now which works fine for me. So good luck to all!!! Excelsior!!

I just wanted to thank everyone for all their hardwork on xbmc for xbox. I still use it daily in my bedroom(still only have a crt tv there) You guys did an awesome job developing this software.

I remember when I finally switched from UiX to XBMC (or it may have been XBMP at the time, I don’t recall). I have since purchased 2 more Xboxes for myself solely for XBMC and setup my brother, both parents, and a handful of friends with XBMC for Xbox over the years. Other than the very rare lockup when trying to load an obscure video format, it hasn’t missed a beat in years. (I don’t think I’ve updated in prolly about a year. Longer for other peoples’ boxes.)

I only last week upgraded to an ASRock ION 330HT as my primary media device. It has a few quirks (especially remote reception, not XBMC’s fault) that I haven’t hammered out just yet, but its certainly the future. Its nice to have support 720 and 1080 videos. Removing the Xbox specific portions of the docs and wiki will certainly help new users, as someone else mentioned above.

Thanks to all those who have made all this possible and those who will continue to improve it.

Lets change the name!

With this news, Team Blackbolt would also like to clarify our position. Due to the unforeseen changes with how XBMC now handles skins, we have decided that our last project for XBOX, an Xbox compatible version of Ellipsis, will now be cancelled. We feel that with our limited time, our efforts are best focused on the main branch of Ellipsis and our other projects.

We do however encourage user-created Xbox compatible versions of our skins. But, we will not be supporting this format ourselves in future.

T’was a good ride upon the black box, but it is now time to expand our horizons and look beyond, without limitation. The shackles are off…

Microsoft, thank you. Team XBMC, thank you more.

I’ve been using xbmc since xbmp on my rev 1 xbox.
I’ve had quite a few xboxs religiously running the latest and greatest xbmc at the time, and set up even more for friends.

I couldn’t have been more excited when it was ported to the x86 platform. For quite a long time now I’ve been playing HD media and using xbmc on x86, the xbox isn’t feasible for my media consumption any more, let alone all the potential a ‘full pc’ has to add to it.
I’ve loved following the development of this project more than any other OSS, and I’m really looking forward to how it turns out. Personally I think dropping support is both good for me and the future of this project.

Any plans for a name change in that case?

I saw this in the RSS ticker on my Xbox and I was a bit shocked. I am greatly saddened to hear that the XBMC team is dropping support for the Xbox. XBMC is the main reasons I use my Xbox everyday. I’ve always looked forward to updated scripts, new addons and the latest SVN builds. With the pending Xbox forum lock, talk of pruning Xbox entries from the wiki, and halted development on what was the last (and best) Xbox dash still being updated it seems like this site has kinda lost its purpose for me. Though you guys have mentioned that Arnova will be developing the pure Xbox fork I simply can’t help but feel this is just a sign of what’s to come- finality and obsolescence.

While I don’t share the hate that others have expressed I hope you guys realize that you’ve alienated a lot of people- I include myself among them. Somehow I wonder if I could have helped change that. Could I have donated more? Maybe if I bought that stupid mousepad or the golf shirt instead of a tee. Maybe…

It was fun while it lasted.

Just a thought, wouldn’t this be a good opportunity to change the name to something not containing Xbox?

that is B.S. you were promising an xbox version and because you could not deliver, now you use this opportunity to say the work has bee cancelled. Just say you were not able to make it happen, people been waiting a long time for that skin….

@Geese
Xbox Media Center might be dead at xbmc.org, but not at xbmc4xbox.org – we’re not going to let it die, not for now anyways…

@All Xbox Users
You might want to change your RSS tickets to point to the new website and project, see more details here:
http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/wiki/index.php?title=RssFeeds.xml

Having been using XBMC for many years would just like to thank the XBMC team for all their efforts during this time and Arnova’s dedication in keeping the X in xbmc alive.
Will admit using XBMC on more current hardware with better features is pretty nice but still keep the good ole xbox’s in the bedrooms where more simple setups are enough, plus all my family still uses the xbox’s I got for them.

Thanks again and keep the great work going.

MAYBE A GOOD TIME FOR EVERYONE TO SEND A DONATION VIA PAYPAL AS A THANK YOU! (I’m off to donate again :D )

Interessting Twitter Posting from an German Microsoft Employee:
http://twitter.com/dreisechzig/status/15097570519 (Its in German, but simply translated he claims that the xbmc team stole their stuff)

Farewell old girl…

You did your job to the best of you ability…now rest. Hats off to an amazing run.

@Detch

Na.. The translated comment says that XBMC is compiled with the XDK… That is true. It doesn’t really mean the team stole their stuff.

As I read the message it was the black friday to me :-/ Very sad ending.

Thanks to the developers. Years and years of hard work, really appreciated.

I’ve always been quite vocal in the past, regarding the need for an HD supporting platform. It was inevitable and the writing has been on the walls for many years now. Instead of protesting, people should be happy that support has gone ahead for so long.

Thanks to all the developers for all the hard work in creating XBMP and XBMC for the XBOx, it made the XBOX the most loved piece of technology in my house

Too bad ! XBox with XBMC is the only player who provide a top quality image with RGB out. All future feature on others platforms nerver replace image quality of the XBox. Too bad again…

Farewell old girl…

This was inevitable but very sad. I have moved on to an Ion HTPC but have three XBOX’s I built for friends at home right now that I updated last week with SVN rev29407. I’ll never forgot you, or the time you got me stuck for 4 hours at LAX because I had switches in the back of my Xbox to turn the mod chip on and off, Fond Memories…

Sad news, but inevitable I guess.
I have 5 installations myself (3*PC/netbook and 2*xbox) and spotting the difference between developments that applied to Xbox and those for other platforms was beginning to tax my tiny brain.
Thanks to everyone who put in the time and effort to make it all possible and I’m looking forward to the future :o)

Incidentally, I’m stunned by the (small number of) people here who have
a) benefitted enormously in the past,
b) lost _nothing_ at all through this decision and
c) still expect the people who DID THE WORK to listen to their whining :o)

Seriously folks, this is a time to say thank you and maybe shed a nostalgic tear, not make yourself look like an arsehole.