Today, July 29th 2024, marks the shutdown date for the Xbox Games Store, previously known as the Xbox Live Marketplace. Introduced with the Xbox 360, this was also the market used on the Xbox One until October 2017, when the Microsoft Store took over digital content purchases for that console family and beyond.
This means that, while you can still play purchased content, new content for the Xbox 360, including games, DLC, and other media, cannot be purchased at all. If you don’t already have it, or can’t find it on a disc, then that’s it — game over.
Now, Xbox Live service for the system is still active, for now, and Xbox 360 software that is backwards compatible on the Xbox One / Xbox Series consoles can still be purchased and played — this really only, at its core, affects the Xbox 360 console itself, and marks a major phase towards its total abandonment by Microsoft.
It’s funny, this is something I’ve been contemplating for a decade now, it seems — just when will the Xbox 360 become fully unsupported? I originally, in 2015, gave it another 5 years, so 2020. That felt right, and certainly in 2016 hardware stopped being produced, and the system has only received minor updates since that time, but it was still alive and kicking, far longer than I expected it to. In 2019 I gave it, again, another 5 years, this time off the basis of the upcoming release of the Xbox Series consoles. That would put the death date at 2025, or, 20 years after the system was originally released.
Now, we’ve already hit the first half of what I consider the requirements for such a modern console (one out of production and with no new games being made) to truly be abandoned — any online shop supporting it is shut down. The second requirement, and one we haven’t hit yet, is that any online services provided for the system cease to be accessible with the hardware — that is to say, in this case, Xbox Live is no longer available on the Xbox 360 console.
As it stands, I give the system maybe a couple of more years as the last dedicated players finally fall away. It’s a shame, as in the past decade I had really grown to love the system and, had life not gotten in the way the past two years, I’d still likely be firing mine up regularly to just enjoy the offerings. Of course, I still have plenty of games to play on disc, so the system will never be outright abandoned by me personally, but I do hate that, once all the services are gone, even title updates, some of which are effectively required to even have a stable game, will no longer be available and some disc based software may become completely useless simply due to having been shipped in a poor state.
That’s not to mention any software that is effectively lost to time, save for possible copies on any individuals system or archival dumps made to be used with modded systems — something I’ve never done with the Xbox 360 but certainly will go ahead and try as the system finally dies. Granted by then the modding scene won’t give a fuck about the hardware, as they gave up on the original Xbox not long after the 360’s release, but to me when a system dies is the best time to work on modifications and custom software because you know it isn’t going to change, or be banned from a service that no longer exists! That and I prefer to pay for (most of) my video games, in some form, and play legitimately.
So yeah.. at the absolute latest, I give the Xbox 360 2027 before the Xbox Live service is shut down for it. I think closer to late 2025 still, but I’ll add a few years just to cover the spread.
I feel odd, somewhat mourning this event, because back when it was a new and current system I had an irrational hatred of it. Blame my tendency to grow to dislike things people just won’t shut up about, but yeah, I hated the console originally.
Such is the nature of things sometimes. In any case, farewell to the Xbox 360 Marketplace. Thanks for the gaming fun.