Xbox Live was a year late, and has since been shut down regardless. Phantasy Star came with an online adapter for GameCube, but I think that was for Japan only, and GCN came out the same fall as THPS3 for PS2, maybe even a few weeks later. And I imagine PSO itself no longer works on the Cube anyway.

Online handhelds didnt quite exist, there may have been a Tiger Electronics toy predating Tony Hawk 3, but no way it still works today. And of course you can still play Doom/Quake/Unreal/Counter Strike on PCs, though those are heavily patched to work today, and consist of remakes like Quake Live.

Dreamcast predated this, but I havent heard whether that still connects to the internet. I remember it using a proprietary AOL style dial up service from AT&T.

So is THPS3 for the PS2 the oldest, unmodified, unhacked, un-remastered (console?) game you can still play online?

Somebody should find out the answer to this. Ya know.... for science.

Somebody should find out the answer to this. Ya know.... for science.

@ChadMasterFlash said:

@Demoskinos said:

Somebody should find out the answer to this. Ya know.... for science.

I'll get out my hammer and get on it.

NO HER LEGS!!!!

I'm gonna say the Sega NetLink for the Saturn?

Since that was just like direct dial-up connection, no servers to keep going that probably still works if you have all the hardware. Get your Daytona USA on. Or some Virtual-On.

Believe it or not, there was an add-on for the SNES that allowed you to play a small number of games online. It's quite obscure so give me some time to dig up info on it, but you may be wrong by a decade or so.

EDIT: Ah! Didn't take me as long to find it as I thought it would.

EDIT 2: Nevermind, it became defunct in 1997. Oh, well, still an interesting bit of info.

I know you can still play the original Phantasy Star Online for the dreamcast legally (Sega Japan handed the dude his server files i think) online still by googling for the right place and things (I honestly dont remember). Its a cool server since it hosts the Dreamcast gamers and PC gamers on the same server :)

@MikkaQ said:

I'm gonna say the Sega NetLink for the Saturn?

Since that was just like direct dial-up connection, no servers to keep going that probably still works if you have all the hardware. Get your Daytona USA on. Or some Virtual-On.

Yes, Netlink still works and people still play games online.

@Atramentous said:

@MikkaQ said:

I'm gonna say the Sega NetLink for the Saturn?

Since that was just like direct dial-up connection, no servers to keep going that probably still works if you have all the hardware. Get your Daytona USA on. Or some Virtual-On.

Yes, Netlink still works and people still play games online.

How does this kind of thing work? Is there some kind of lobby?

That'd be an awesome Giant Bomb video series: old still somehow working online console games. Who are the people playing these games.

@ArtisanBreads said:

@Atramentous said:

@MikkaQ said:

I'm gonna say the Sega NetLink for the Saturn?

Since that was just like direct dial-up connection, no servers to keep going that probably still works if you have all the hardware. Get your Daytona USA on. Or some Virtual-On.

Yes, Netlink still works and people still play games online.

How does this kind of thing work? Is there some kind of lobby?

That'd be an awesome Giant Bomb video series: old still somehow working online console games. Who are the people playing these games.

No, it works basically like calling someone on the phone. You connected with someone and could play against only them. Netlink had a lobby style section but that was shut down a loooong time ago. It also had a mostly fully featured web browser.

EDIT: Or if your asking how people meet up to arrange when to play, they hit forums online that have sections dedicated to Netlink matches.

@Atramentous said:

@ArtisanBreads said:

@Atramentous said:

@MikkaQ said:

I'm gonna say the Sega NetLink for the Saturn?

Since that was just like direct dial-up connection, no servers to keep going that probably still works if you have all the hardware. Get your Daytona USA on. Or some Virtual-On.

Yes, Netlink still works and people still play games online.

How does this kind of thing work? Is there some kind of lobby?

That'd be an awesome Giant Bomb video series: old still somehow working online console games. Who are the people playing these games.

No, it works basically like calling someone on the phone. You connected with someone and could play against only them. Netlink had a lobby style section but that was shut down a loooong time ago. It also had a mostly fully featured web browser.

EDIT: Or if your asking how people meet up to arrange when to play, they hit forums online that have sections dedicated to Netlink matches.

Okay well that's crazy but awesome. Going to have to look into this just for fun.

@ArtisanBreads said:

@Atramentous said:

@MikkaQ said:

I'm gonna say the Sega NetLink for the Saturn?

Since that was just like direct dial-up connection, no servers to keep going that probably still works if you have all the hardware. Get your Daytona USA on. Or some Virtual-On.

Yes, Netlink still works and people still play games online.

How does this kind of thing work? Is there some kind of lobby?

That'd be an awesome Giant Bomb video series: old still somehow working online console games. Who are the people playing these games.

People probably still running their own servers. Just like PSO on the Dreamcast. All you need is to hook up your Dreamcast through a dial-up jack on your PC, get some necessary software to have the PC recognize the Dreamcast, and you should be good to go.

What I'm actually curious about is if the Sega Genesis Net cartridge still work. If it does, that would be awesome.

@ChadMasterFlash: Thank you for that.

I actually did some looking and it looks like THPS3 is the oldest game that still playable online for the PS2 followed by THPS4 and then either THUG or Midnight Club 2.