After 18 years, Microsoft is finally putting the Xbox 360 to rest. The company has officially announced that the Xbox 360 marketplace will officially be closing next year, closing a major chapter in gaming history.
Revealed by the Xbox website, it was stated that players will no longer be able to purchase games from the 360 Marketplace on July 29, 2024. It was also confirmed that the Microsoft Movies & TV app will no longer work on 360 as well when the date arrives.
While things are looking dire, Microsoft did stress that any Xbox 360 games purchased from Marketplace will still be playable. Players also have until July 2024 to buy as many 360 games as they can. Deleted games can also be redownloaded, which is expected but assured.
It wasn’t that long ago when Sony attempted to stop supporting the PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita. Plenty of vocal support actually led to Sony stopping their plans and both stores are still available today. However, now that the 360 Marketplace is gone, Sony’s 6th generation stores could be next.
Fans saw the writing on the wall when Microsoft announced that they would be de-listing several 360 games back in February. While a number of these games are still available on the Xbox One and Xbox Series store, this doesn’t help anyone with a 360 console.
To play devil’s advocate, Microsoft has gone out of its way to make the Xbox Series a console for backwards compatibility. Popular Call of Duty games from the 360-era recently had their online match-fixing repaired, resulting in a ton of sales and multiplayer matches. Specific Xbox 360 games have also received a boost for current-gen systems, most notably, Sonic Generations and Sonic Unleashed.
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Xbox 360 players have until July 29 to keep purchasing games from the 360 Marketplace.