Happy 19th birthday to the Xbox 360! Yes, the console originally launched on November 22nd, 2005, and it's been a crazy ride since then - incredible new features, an amazing library of games, the Red Ring of Death saga, the console's marketplace being turned off last year... it goes on and on. There have been highs and lows, but there's no doubt that most Xbox fans consider this a classic console... possibly the best in the brand's entire history.
But what about its place in today's world? Is there any point keeping an Xbox 360 around in 2024? We're biased because we're huge Xbox fans, but we'd say it's a definite yes! There's still so much to enjoy with the Xbox 360 these days that can't be enjoyed on modern consoles, and obviously a lot of that relates to backwards compatibility.
It's to Microsoft's credit that a whopping 632 games from the Xbox 360 library can be played on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S these days, and you don't have to buy them again in order to enjoy them on modern consoles. That's an amazing feat that shouldn't be overlooked... but there are still many more that are locked to the 360.
You can probably think of a title off the top of your head - we highlighted Blur a few months ago, for example:
There are so many great experiences that backwards compatibility is unfortunately missing out on, quite often due to licensing reasons. Sure, you can't buy some of these digitally anymore, but at least their physical versions still exist!
While we're talking about backwards compatibility, another thing that I personally use my Xbox 360 for is playing original Xbox games. See, the 360 had a different kind of backwards compatibility that allowed all sorts of OG Xbox titles to run on it - Burnout 3, Tony Hawk's Underground, etc - and it's a very different list to what you'll get on the Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. You need to buy a hard drive for it, but otherwise it's good to go.
You know what else, though? We're living in a world now that's full of online-only games, constant updates, cloud-based titles that run into server issues, and physical titles that don't actually contain the full content on the disc. The Xbox 360 represents a simpler time where you could (and can still) open a box, insert a disc, and begin playing your chosen game. As time has gone on, we've come to appreciate this quality more and more.
So yeah, that's why we're still regularly using our Xbox 360 consoles in 2024 here at Pure Xbox! But how about you? Do you still have one hooked up, or has it been years since you last tried one? We'd love to hear from you down below!
The following poll proved really popular back in April - give us your vote if you haven't already!
Do You Still Use Your Xbox 360 In 2024? (3,852 votes)
- Yes, I use it all the time!
- Fairly often, yeah
- Now and again
- Rarely, but it's been known
- No, I don't use it at all!
- I used to have a 360, but I don't now
- I've never owned an Xbox 360 actually...
What did you vote in the poll? Any Xbox 360 memories to share with us? Tell us in the comments.
Comments 44
The 360 is sitting on top of a One X , both regularly used ,
the 360 primarily with the kinect , Kinect Sports 1 and 2 is still a lot of fun, the 2 series S are in kid's bed rooms, and dad's series X is in his 'office/man corner'
It's still an amazing console historically, and always will be. But I'm not sure i'd agree it's still an amazing console to play in 2024. Low resolutions, lower framerates, long load times, low texture quality etc. and a lot of outdated game design without the QoL features we expect in 2024. Gaming has come on a long way since, although I do miss some of the shorter, simpler experiences.
I still have mine and use it in a pinch if a game isn't available via XSX, but that list of X360 only games that I want to play is pretty small now. Most are either available via BC or have had updated versions. But there still are a handful.
@themightyant I actually have an amazing experience playing the games still this year on it. However, lack of dashboarding/quick resume obviously sucks.
And the actual dashboard of my 360 is the slowest thing in the world. Does anyone else have this? Like it’s so slow, and then it finally gets to the game you want and then it’s absolutely fine.
I do remember the 360 with a lot of fondness, but I must confess mine went some time ago so I'm afraid it's been some time since I used one.
I'm a little over run with new titles to play so I simply don't go retro very often now and if I do, then it's really old stuff like arcade games from my youth. Untill this year I left a PS2 and PS3 connected , mainly for guitar hero, but they were unplugged and put back to storage in the summer.
I do miss a lot of great 360 games, but I suspect they are better memories than experiences these days...
@Dalamar73 Glad you are still enjoying it mate. Personally I find it a major step back that I struggle with. I find it more comfortable to play older 8-bit or 16-bit retro consoles than PS1 - X360 era. Though the 360 is right on the cusp and significantly better than PS1, N64 etc.
Until recently, I used my 360 as the Rock Band machine. I haven't set it up again since moving. When I get the itch to play a bit of Beatles Rock Band, it will get plugged back in. Great console.
It's a shame most of the online functionality got disabled with the store closure, in particular the Microsoft Movies & TV. But it's a fantastic offline machine and still home to some genuine favorites.
@Dalamar73 Many of those arcade classics are 2D from far longer ago, they are on almost everything not just the 360. It's not a reason to go back to X360 for me, perhaps because I have them elsewhere.
That said I can understand the getting used to it bit, with no other hardware coming out this year I just bought a PS5 Pro and what I am playing? Xenoblade Chonicles 3 on Switch despite it's unstable, sub-30fps framerate, and low res visuals it's still a beautiful game. At the end of the day good games are good games. Enjoy.
Absolutely...I'm still jumping on and off between the the Xbox 360 and Series X with hopes that one day I would finish my huge 360 backlog of amazing games.
Aww yes, I have great gaming memories from that console.
Geometry Wars Retro Evolved... so addictive, still play it now.
Burnout CRASH 😁
GTA IV... first GTA game I played, loved it.
Red Dead Redemption
Bioshock
EDIT: How can I forget Gears of War. 😁
Good times! 👍
@Dalamar73 it might be that, comparative to the Series X; but I swear it wasn’t this slow back when I used it heavily.
Anyway played through Samurai Warriors 2, Xtreme Legends and most of Saw this year on 360 and they were all working great.
I got Xbox 360 Halo Reach Limited Edition with 2 controllers which I will never give away...
Along with;
Lost Odyssey
Halo Anniversary Edition
Halo 3
Halo Reach
Halo Wars
Forza Motorsports 3
Forza Horizon
Dead Uprising 2 Off The Record
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection
Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Fable II
Nighty Nine Nights
Kinect Rush
Dark Souls
Kingdom Under Fire, Circle of Doom
and many more as in disk format...
i recently went back to it because of how mediocre this generation is. call me weird but i love the feel of the 360 controller & love the design more. it’s why i bought the hyperkin xbox360 controller to use on modern hardware.
it’s an amazing console that was a huge part of everyones lives gaming, and offered so much whether it be games or just endless entertainment . 7th generation as a whole (ps3/360/wii) is the best console generation imo & that’s not just nostalgia talking . imagine a console generation that struck the sweet spot between what made 6th generation great and took a bit from 8th generation - that’s pretty much 7th gen. whereas 8th generation leaned more towards the crap state of gaming now
@K1LLEGAL the 360 is slow now because microsoft kept trying to push modern updates on it that squeezed out every bit of its cpu that it could offer id presume. just like how (older)iphones get slower overtime as apps get more modern updates and new iOS updates
i bet if there was a way to reverse updates on it back to the blades or NXE dashboard it would be fast again . i’ve hated the dashboard ever since the kinect came out ; the pre-2010 dashboard was much better
@Dalamar73 i wish the industry would go back to making “smaller” AAA games. reduce the emphasis on cinematic crap & graphics and utilize the power of modern consoles elsewhere like amazing gameplay, physics , level design , etc . i’m perfectly fine with 12-20 hour games , or however long they used to be. i actually hate when games dont know when to end and/or take too long to get going . i think it’s better to have SEVERAL 12-20 hour games to play vs that one AAA 40+ hour game every 6 years .
I’m not sure Xbox will track our yearly playtime on our 360s when that rolls out, but I’ve definitely invested more time into gaming on my 360 this year than my Series S.
I still have my 360, but haven’t used it in about 10 years.
Camping outside Best Buy the day before release with two friends is still one of my favorite memories 🤙
@Dalamar73 “ I've actually enjoyed many of the remakes and remasters of past AAA titles that have surfaced over many newer titles.”
also indies came a long way , kinda crazy that they’re still considered indies . wouldn’t they be called AA now ? like astrobot for example.
Xbox 360 is one of the best consoles ever made, in my opinion. It also has an incredibly strong output of first party games, and second and third party games were much better to play on that console than elsewhere. Unfortunately, Xbox One couldn’t follow suit, and the same with the Series X, but thankfully there is backward compatibility support.
I wanted to play sonic 06 so I bought the disk. It will not let you play it on the series x no matter what. Id never played it and always wanted the experience, good thing I had my 360. They literally delisted a physical copy of a game lol
@Drsnover Sonic 06 was on the Xbox360 store before it shut down; i bought it digitally . It’s janky as hell, super janky , but damn it’s a cool ass sonic game imo (minus the infamous kissing). i prefer sonic games like this over frontiers. i miss the adventure style so much
My 360 is still my Guitar Hero/Rock Band machine. I still love chilling to the music atleast once a week.
I think the 360 aged spectacularly well. Games still look good, far better than PS1/2 these days, and it's 1080p output can still look great on a modern 4K display. That and everything besides the launch consoles has HDMI support. It's crazy how current it can still feel for something nearly 20 years old.
Let's take a nostalgic trip down the 7th Gen memory lane, shall we? Here's the scoop:
And that's just scratching the surface! So, did gamers really lose out after the 7th Gen? Sure, the graphics leveled up, but oh, the price of progress!
@old-dad It's almost unfathomable how many games used to come out in the 6th and 7th gens (aside from the fact that we saw it firsthand, I mean).
We're talking about large, flagship AAAs here, and the same series could get 2-3 quality entries in a single generation; now, we might have a single entry over the course of 2-3 console generations! (See: The Elder Scrolls, GTA, Mario Kart, Metroid Prime, Devil May Cry, Donkey Kong, Fable, etc. etc.)
@themightyant Yeah, that was a pretty dark time for technical performance. After an all-too-short generation where 60fps was the norm and loading times were typically ~5 seconds (and many of the games still looked great!), the 360 and PS3 felt like a big step back. And the next gen might've been even worse, since it normalized loading screens of over 30 seconds- despite jumping from DVDs to HDDs as the main storage medium.
I basically sat out that generation (Nintendo wasn't doing much that I cared for, either), but it has been nice to finally catch up on some of these on more capable hardware (PC) and enjoy them in a form that's easier on the eyes!
Not sure what you mean about outdated design, though. I was under the impression that games became fully "modern" around that time. But maybe just I'm too old-fashioned to notice.
@nomither6 The potential of Sonic '06 might be what hurts the most, as I greatly prefer the Adventure style over the boost formula that almost everything has followed since then. But 06 basically sank that whole sub-series with its horrible execution- or should I say, it horribly and violently executed the sub-series?
@smoreon Not every game from that era has outdated game design, but a lot of it does and feels old and clunky when you play it now. Most remasters often add quality of life features to try and polish the worst parts away and i'd usually rather play those than the originals.
@smoreon id say the upper management hurt it most. the potential of 06 is what makes me like the game so much . you can tell it was supposed to be this big grand adventure with all characters playable & present throughout sonic , shadow , & silvers story . it’s why i love the adventure games so much , because all the characters are present , involved, & playable. I miss when sonic team was ambitious and really wanted to innovate the franchise instead of playing it safe like with the awfully boring & stale frontiers, the remaster of generations, and that lazy ass forces game. Sonic generations (2011) was the last good sonic game imo , and that game just consisted of throwbacks to a better time of sonic. you can argue that the new shadow content is some light at the end of the tunnel but eh…it’s still s***y boost gameplay that the franchise has been stuck with for over a decade now. it was great at first , but now it’s bland
I rebought a 360 from a toy fair. The 360 era was amazing - XBLA weekly releases were always something to look forward to imo, as was necessitation of trial versions. The library was superb and bought so many games over the years.
Thing is tho id been on the fence about getting one again primarily because of how wireless controllers are handled and how worn down 360 controllers often got. Im disappointed about the marketplace shut down but re grabbed some of my stuff before hand.
I think there is some kind of an adapter (Brook Wingman convertor) that i have been eyeing. But i havent really taken the plunge. I feel like more rrsearch is needed, but being able to use Xbox One controllers would be nice
Microsoft's ongoing support for games on all their released consoles and the ability to still run the 360 and onward games/consoles is one of the reasons I continue to stay with XB as my primary console. I know that if I invest in it, MS will support it for a very long time.
@themightyant If we're talking about something like Dead Rising 1, then sure, that feels very much like a PS2 game, and not even a late one.
But in general, I might just be too used to 5th-gen and earlier standards to really be bothered! (Or maybe I'm just forgetting, and I'll suddenly be hit with how clunky everything is, the next time I play a 360-era title.)
@nomither6 That's basically what I meant, but I must not have expressed it clearly. The ambition is one of the things that stands out about the Adventure-era games in general (Heroes a little less so), and it was really impressive in SA1 especially.
And yeah, 06 had lots of potential, which is good... but that's also what hurts, as I can see what it could have been. Yeah, the story was always going to be kind of weird and lame, but there are some cool level designs, graphical touches, music tracks, etc., all throughout this game.
I've likened the Adventure vs Boost styles to Goldeneye vs Call of Duty, respectively. Sure, the latter is more polished and has a lot of spectacle, but there's less freedom, and it's ultimately less interesting to me.
PS: I guess P06 (the unofficial PC port of 06) is fully playable now, if not done yet? I tried an earlier build, and liked what I saw.
@smoreon i agree. also sonic heroes is kind of another one - such a great concept i wish it had a sequel to give it another chance!
Still use mine but mostly for certain games
I use mine at least once a week for one reason or another with a Series controller mostly even. You don't have to settle for the 360 controller if you don't want to just get a Brook adapter.
Still one of the best libraries of games on a console to date (even if OG is my fav Xbox) and vastly superior versions of most (not all) games of 7th Gen. Just make sure if your looking into buying one now in 2024 or early 2025 get an S or an E version they will last way longer.
I had 4 xbox 360, 2 red rings and 2 dvd drive fails pushed me to get a ps3 at the time (still have it and it still works good for killzone, infamous, motorstorm etc.) it took over 10 years to go back to xbox but I still remember the 360 fondly even with the pain. Now I have ps5 and a series s and I play the series s more.
The last GREAT Xbox console.
Software wise, still my favorite Xbox console. The best feature of XSX, imo, is the ability to play many of my favorite 360 games with enhancements.
We had a break-in in our storage in late april this year, and my R2D2 edition Xbox 360 was stolen, amongst other things. I’m super sad I lost that beautiful console, even if I hadn’t used it much at all since the BC program started.
Still use mine every so often, been replaying Spider-Man 3 and Sonic 06.
@nomither6
LoL I bought the 20 year edition of the Duke and it feels crazy!! It has the OG Xbox start up animation in the middle of the controller when you hit the Xbox button
@Drsnover
Weird I thought the disc always worked...
I bought the deadpool disc n it works great, and it delisted digitally.
@Stoned_Patrol damn that’s dope !
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