Microsoft Announces The Xbox 360 Store Will Close In July 2024

Didn't even make it to 18!

Oh no, hope this is a joke of some sort.

"Backwards compatible titles will also still remain purchasable on the modern Xbox Store if they're available on there." Whew, this was the part I was worried about. So, just closing on 360 consoles. Not as bad as I feared.

I'm honestly kinda surprised it lasted this long. It sucks but at least they gave an almost year's notice.

@jkald Yes, I'm sure Phil saw the backlash Sony was up against when they announced the PS3 and Vita store closures and thought to himself, "lol boys let's tell our customers the 360 store is closing as a joke". 🤔

"Feeling cute might close the 360 store idk."

my mate who bought tons of tv and films on the xbox 360 wont be happy

just under 1 years notice

@FraserG guess he will have to get himself a new xbox then

Well I guess they should consider adding more titles to the backwards compatible program then. It's not like I'm missing much honestly, but it's sad to think a lot of games will be lost forever.

The meaning behind this differs depending on if you're still on an XBOX 360 or if you've moved to XBOX One or later.

If you're still on XBOX 360, in around a year, the marketplace will shut down, and you'll only have any games you currently own for as long as XBOX Live exists.

If you're playing XBOX 360 games on XBOX One, nothing really changes. The majority of games have already moved their content to the modern store, so you'll be able to buy the DLC as normal.

Pathetic especially after them talking up about the importance of preservation for a long time. The vast majority of games and DLC on the 360 marketplace aren't available on the XB1/Series X|S store.

there's apparently over 2000 xbox 360 games which a quarter about 500 are backwards compatible

so 3/4 of the games wont be available for purchase in the future

There are still some backwards compatible titles that are ONLY available through the old store (Jet Grind Radio Future, Daytona USA, etc.).

For anyone interested I’d grab those ASAP

It is a shame when these get shutdown.

However, this seems pretty reasonable to me. You can't keep this stuff running forever. Processing financial transactions is something that needs ongoing care and maintenance. It isn't something that just runs on it's own if you keep the servers up.

As long as the servers stay up to allow people to download content I don't see this as a game preservation issue.

Seems fair considering most people don’t use it and you can just buy them all on the new store anyways. Plus you can still easily redownload all the games previously purchased.

Sad to see it go for nostalgia reasons but I mean… I’m shocked it was still even up lol.

"For the foreseeable future" is a little worrisome.

Sad times. I still enjoy going back to my 360, but admittedly it's mostly for games which have also disappeared from the 360 marketplace due to licensing issues or whatever else.

They’re doing this the right way by announcing the store closure now since it’s still long enough before it happens. You’re not going to please everybody but I’m sure there’s not that many people using the Xbox 360 store now.

I guess it was bound to happen at some point.

How about a sale then, on the stuff that is NEVER on sale?

@Grackler There are some games that are (were?) only available via the 360 marketplace, but it's hardly "constantly" needing to use it. Daytona USA couldn't have been that recently as it was delisted from the 360 marketplace about 6m ago.

I want to mock MS for always shooting themselves in the other foot with this stuff, but I can't help but feel this is about OTHER publishers putting pressure on old stores, like 2K that wants to sell $50 exact copy ports every few years and having old version for pennies on old stores makes them unhappy. MS's own old games are all available on the new store, and the 360 itself was never much of a "digital first" era platform to begin with. PS3 was a bit of a special case because it's not backward compaatible anywhere, so shutting PS3 store down means even the major first party games just vanish from availability, while the 360 store, most of the notable stuff is available on the new platforms, and most of the rare stuff is likely owned physically.

What happens to BC games like FF13 though? Weren't they sold through the old store only?

Not surprising after they accidentally leaked this a few months ago.

@NEStalgia you can buy FFXIII trilogy through the new store. Most backwards compatible games are on there I believe. Just a couple that aren’t.

At least unlike the mass delistings earlier this year they're giving us a decent heads up period. Though there are still quite a few DLCs for BC games only available on the 360 Store, so I guess a bunch of people will just have no DLC for some of their games.

@K1LLEGAL Ahh, cool, I bought it back when it launched, (and 4 days later it was half price....grrrrr) and it was still only on the old store back then, but, that was all back in the X1 era. I tend to forget things probably changed after that.

After this news expect Sony to do the same thing only this time for good.

Ok 19 years. That's pretty good. And they recently fixed the Microsoft Movies tab. Although you can't download movies anymore to the console, at least I can streak properly now.

@NEStalgia Can buy FF13 and its two sequels on Series consoles as i recently bought them on my SS.

@Grackler You cannot buy on the xbox.com website?

Well, gonna have to have a look and see what I may need. Thanks to all the sales and robust physical editions I was able to get a ridiculous 360 content library.

Proof of the danger of a digital only future. The Series S store will close one day… once in the digital train unless it’s in PC, you’ll be forced to upgrade consoles forever so long as backwards compatibility exists.

Not bad for a console that's older than the Wii!

I still wish MS would reopen the back compat program and add more games to it, though.

@FraserG @trev666 Additionally, with Movies Anywhere, if you link your Microsoft account, all the movies you bought on Xbox (besides Paramount/Lionsgate) will also be on your iTunes/Vudu/Amazon/YouTube accounts.

Some folks here seem to think that everything from the 360 store is available in current stores, and that is not the case. There are MANY games on the 360 store that are not backwards compatible and therefore NOT available in the Xbox One/Series stores. So, I'll definitely be looking into what I still want to buy. Sad to see them go, game preservation and all that, but at least they are giving us AMPLE notice, it will have lasted 19 years by that time, and, of course, you'll still be able to redownload purchased stuff... For an unknown amount of time. Really, giving us almost a full year heads up is very much appreciated, and all I could ask for in this digital age.

@Markatron84 "might delete later"

@Ninfan No it's shutting down. You'll be able to redownload any purchases you've already made but you won't be able to buy anything.

@trev666 Anything he bought on it is still his and he will be able to download.

@Ninfan I can't help you there. Microsoft says it's shutting it down on 29th July 2024 (as mentioned in the article) so it should still be up and running 🤷

End of an era but I am not surprised seeing how the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS stores shut down. It's actually amazing how the 360's online store has lasted this long.

Can't say I am really effected by this, I have long stopped buying stuff there, mostly because I was always really into the Xbox One and the backwards compatibility there really replaced it.

Glad some Indies/Xbox Live Arcade games are on disks, or big games DLC disks/Game of the Year editions but doesn't help the DLCs of cars/events/songs/games and more delisted already to what will be delisted in the coming days.

I await the 501 OG Xbox BC games for 360 service/updates disappear too eventually. I mean for licensing clearly not I played PGR 1 & 2 in 2020 but for just in general the service they can't support that internet based service forever it isn't hardware based offline after all.

The store going and what is left hopefully some notable games (besides the big obviously still on disk that people don't need to buy but will and if good prices I don't blame people doing so then physical.

Even if I mean very few people collect for OG Xbox/360 games so they are always cheap to pick up people have different values towards them for anyone to shop for as most care for PS/Nintendo/Sega and such even if a lot of good games on Xbox consoles exclusives and third parties left behind but it's the best 2 platforms to get games for video quality and just in general).

Also ironic if it wasn't for the postponement the PS3/Vita would be gone but it's still up (getting what I can before then).

The first console to push an eshop of that gen/first to release a console that gen yet it's the last to shut down certain services still (besides the postponement of the other).

If you havent purchased any additional 360 games by now, you obviously weren't going to, all the excuses notwithstanding. It's ridiculous to think any company will keep an older storefront open indefinitely. You can still play your games, you just can't buy non backwards compatible games after the shut off date. 🙄🙄🙄

@S1ayeR74
And how is this proof of danger for a store closing?

They didn't say you won't be able to download your games that you bought. They explicitly have said you can continue to download your previously purchased games and content for those games. And I always keep a downloaded version of my games so I can play them long after any store quits allowing me to download.

Now, if they said they were withdrawing purchased, digital rights that would be a completely different story.

I can barely think of a single worthwhile game from X360 era that isn't already remade/remastered or is available on BC. Ofc there are tons of slightly less known games etc. But overall, I guess PC is there with GoG and Steam etc for people who really have serious dedication to game preservation.

@BrilliantBill

For you perhaps but it's subjective, we all have our likes and dislikes. For example, you might not be into Shooting Love 200X but it's a great game only on the 360. There's a physical copy in Japan but even here, it's not the easiest thing to come by.

Preservation also includes experiencing the Xbox 360 store and whatnot as it is. Hopefully modders and whatnot will be able to somehow keep that stuff available but we'll see I suppose.

@Grackler There can't be too many left though. Daytona USA and Jet Set Radio were the two that seemed to get mentioned the most, and they were delisted from the 360 store earlier this year along with a number of other games - mostly stuff that wasn't available on the 'modern' store if I remember correctly. FraserG commented in another post saying he couldn't find any games on the BC list that were not on the current store.

Still can be purchased on Series consoles so not that big of a deal.

Being delisted forever or not being able to use your disc copy on your console would be worrisome.

@NeoRatt And I never stated you cannot download your games you own? You made that up in your own mind from my comment.

You won't be able to get anymore content on them, that's the issue. As in a digital only device.

@S1ayeR74
First, I asked a question and made a statement based on a pretty uninformed conclusion that digital futures are dangerous. Many stores close even in the physical world. If you bought anything that has add-on components and if it was only available through that store, it would no longer be available for you to buy. Same with stores that stay open, they change the models they carry over time making your product obsolete, same with vehicle manufacturers. This is a reality of the world. There is nothing in consumer rights that says stores have to continue to stock existing stuff or stay open forever. Even previous consoles. For example, I have a Colecovision from the early 1980's, once it dies it will be difficult to play the games unless I get another one in the secondhand world. I can't just go and buy one at the K-mart I originally bought it at. You are stating a danger that exists pretty much everywhere with anything that sells with add-ons, which is pretty much everything now-a-days.

Second, smart phones, flat panels in vehicles, portable PC gaming devices like steamdeck/asus rog ally, smart internet appliances, telecom cable boxes, and smart TVs are all digital only devices (Some exceptions depending on the vendor). You can choose to buy both a PS and a XB as a digital only device. Switch is a digital only device. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 10-20 years almost everything is turning into digital only devices. The only place where this remains untrue is with devices that have optical drives or cartridges. You can even say that these devices are digital only, because they use ports or physical media to get everything. If the ports or physical media device dies the device becomes useless unless it can connect to the internet and download stuff. If you think that in 20 years your blu-ray player in your XSX is going to be working fine if you play games often, you are mistaken. Everything dies or gets shutdown eventually.