Microsoft’s Xbox 360 online store just shut its doors for good
Back in August 2023, Microsoft officially announced that the Xbox 360 online store would close in July 2024. That day has now come—and with it, the era of the Xbox 360 finally comes to an end.
The online store’s closure doesn’t just mean that digital Xbox 360 games can no longer be purchased or downloaded. Digital films and TV series are also no longer playable on the Xbox 360.
Related: You can now play Xbox games on Fire TV without an Xbox
Bidding farewell to the Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 was officially released more than 18 years ago on November 22, 2005. As the successor to the first Xbox gaming console, it enjoyed great popularity and produced several iconic game titles, including Halo 3 and Gears of War 2.
Eight years later in 2013, it was taken over by its successor in the Xbox One, and the Xbox 360 was officially discontinued in 2016. You could still buy, download, and play games for a while—but that time has now come to a close with today.
That said, thanks to backwards compatibility, you can still play many games from the Xbox 360 era on modern consoles such as the Xbox Series X. However, maintaining games that run on older systems is an ongoing problem for the gaming industry.
Xbox 360 games are still playable
Even if you can no longer download games from the online store, it’s still possible to keep playing the ones you already have installed. Multiplayer should also be playable to some extent, provided the developers haven’t yet switched off their respective online servers.
According to Microsoft, it should also be possible to transfer game saves from the cloud to other consoles. However, it’s unclear how much longer this feature will be available.
Incidentally, a few weeks before the end of the online store, some Xbox 360 games increased in value. The disc versions of popular titles like Tomb Raider and Call of Duty were suddenly trading at higher prices as demand increased. On average, Xbox 360 games became 14 percent more expensive compared to the previous year.
However, Microsoft now relies much less on physical copies of games. Modern titles are now offered as part of Xbox Game Pass, with many AAA games made available on day one of release. It recently got more expensive, but it’s still one of the most economical options for gamers.