Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox 360 marketplace is set to shut down in 2024, nearly two decades after the storefront's original launch in 2005.
As of July 29, 2024, you will no longer be able to purchase Xbox 360 games through the console itself or the legacy web store. However, you'll still be able to purchase backwards compatible Xbox 360 games to play on modern Xbox consoles.
Even on Xbox 360, Microsoft promises that you'll continue to be able to redownload and play previously purchased games. Multiplayer servers for these delisted games are unaffected by this news - it'll still be up to each individual game's publisher to decide how long the servers should stay running.
While many of the most beloved Xbox 360 games are backwards compatible on modern Xbox consoles, those games represent just a fraction of the platform's library. Wikipedia's last count suggests that, out of 2,154 games released in total for Xbox 360 over its lifetime, only 633 have been made compatible with newer consoles. Notable absences include everything from Marvel: Ultimate Alliance to most of Microsoft's own Forza series.
The Xbox 360 marketplace originally launched alongside the console itself on November 22, 2005. Its early days are mostly remembered for Xbox Live Arcade, a curated selection of small independent titles that helped kickstart the indie gaming explosion, bringing us classics like Braid and Castle Crashers. The service also included DLC and no shortage of very bad paid profile pictures, and eventually expanded to include full digital versions of retail games.
Earlier this year, Microsoft posted a support article saying that the Xbox 360 store would shut down in May 2023, though company representatives quickly noted that message was posted in error. But since numerous classic Xbox 360 games were delisted around the same time, it quickly became clear that the store's days were numbered.
The Xbox 360 store is the second digital platform of its generation to shut down, following the closure of the Wii Shop Channel in 2019. (Nintendo also closed the much more recent Wii U and 3DS eShops earlier this year.) Sony announced plans to shut down the PS3 and Vita stores in 2021, though it backtracked on those plans after a substantial fan backlash. Yet with the 360 store shutting down next year, I have to imagine the days of digital PS3 games are numbered, too - and those don't even have the benefit of backwards compatibility on PS5.
The reality is that most of the games you care about from the Xbox 360 era will remain accessible after this shutdown, whether through backwards compatibility, ports to other platforms, or physical releases playable on the original console. But there are always outliers, and the shutdown of a store like this effectively means that piracy will be the only way to access a certain selection of games in the future. Given how important the Xbox 360 marketplace was to the rise of digital distribution - and indie gaming - in the first place, this is the most stinging store shutdown yet.
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