Insignia, the fan project to get the original Xbox Live back up and running, has opened registration for its first beta, set to begin on November 15.
The project has been in various stages of development for some time, and you might've seen coverage of small-scale Insignia playtests earlier this year. Basically, it's a new set of fan-run servers replacing Xbox Live, which you can connect to using an original Xbox or an emulator like Xemu. While the devs have currently only gotten a small number of games up and running, the goal is to eventually support every OG Xbox game with Xbox Live features.
Insignia is now taking sign-ups for closed beta testers on their official site. Invites will be sent out in batches starting Tuesday, November 15. A setup assistant tool to get your console registered for access to the servers will be distributed sometime before the first wave of invites goes out.
The devs have added a few more games to the list of supported launch titles since their last update, including Call of Duty: Finest Hour, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Dance Dance Revolution: Ultramix, and Unreal Championship. Here's the full list of games that you'll be able to take online on November 15.
- Call of Duty: Finest Hour
- Conker: Live and Reloaded
- Counter-Strike
- Crimson Skies
- Dance Dance Revolution: Ultramix
- Dead or Alive Ultimate
- MechAssault
- Midtown Madness 3
- MotoGP: Online Demo
- Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II
- Star Wars: Jedi Academy
- Street Fighter Anniversary Collection
- Tetris Worlds Online
- Unreal Championship
- Whacked
- Xbox Live Arcade
- XIII
You might be asking why Halo 2 isn't on the list. Unfortunately, that game apparently makes use of additional services beyond those used by base Xbox Live. The devs plan to invest the time to eventually get it working, but they didn't want to delay the launch for just one game. (Of course, you can always play Halo 2 online via the modernized Master Chief Collection.)
Once the free service is up and running, the devs plan to continue adding support for more games on a monthly basis.
Dig into our list of the best original Xbox games of all time.