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The Xbox 360 Store is closing next year

Draugoth

Gold Member
xbox-background-3-1280x720.jpg

Microsoft has announced that it will be closing down the Xbox 360 Store next year.

In a new post on the official Xbox Wire blog, it was announced that the ability to buy new games, DLC and other entertainment content from the Xbox 360 store will end on July 29, 2024.

This specifically refers to the ability to buy content directly through the Xbox 360 console, and the ability to buy content from the Xbox 360 Marketplace site.

It does not affect the ability to buy backwards compatible Xbox 360 games and DLC on the Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S stores, which will continue to be available.
 
With this ~75% of the Xbox 360 game catalog will not be available for purchase. Sony will be watching very carefully how the public reacts to this and the PS3 store closure will not be far behind.
Sony already tried closing the PS3 store and fan backlash forced them to stop.
 

dotnotbot

Member
With this ~75% of the Xbox 360 game catalog will not be available for purchase. Sony will be watching very carefully how the public reacts to this and the PS3 store closure will not be far behind.

Sony better not be watching cause in their case 100% of catalog would become unavailable.
 
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FUBARx89

Member
With this ~75% of the Xbox 360 game catalog will not be available for purchase. Sony will be watching very carefully how the public reacts to this and the PS3 store closure will not be far behind.

Sony got a lot of shit for trying to close PS3 store already.
 

Tsaki

Member
Sony already tried closing the PS3 store and fan backlash forced them to stop.
Sony better not be watching cause in their case 100% of catalog would become unavailable.
Sony got a lot of shit for trying to close PS3 store already.
PS3 store will inevitably get closed down. Will it be in 2025 or 2030? It depends how vocal people are about today's news. The fact that they backpedaled the first time guarantees the second time people will be way less vocal about it.
 
With this ~75% of the Xbox 360 game catalog will not be available for purchase. Sony will be watching very carefully how the public reacts to this and the PS3 store closure will not be far behind.
whoa
I thought it was way better than that, with all the MS works/worked on BC talk. That's pretty much hardly different than Sony's situation where many games exist as remasters, so it wouldn't be 100% either, but either is killing an entire plattform for good.

Sony should just license that RCPS3 emulator, that delivers some 2/3 of all games, improve it with their official knowledge, move every game in an emulation shop and one up MS here.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
There's plenty of games, for example, games like Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and some original Xbox games like Metal Arms that aren't backwards compatible on One/Series.
ahhh, interesting. Any that are on the 360 store, not the S/X store, but are also BC?
 

SkylineRKR

Member
PS3 store is different, many games are locked to PS3 unless you count streaming. There is a huge lot of PS1 games on the JP store for example. I nabbed Einhander for like 500 yen a few months ago.

Xbox has its non compatible games too ofcourse, but I figure on PS3 its worse.
 

fatmarco

Member
ahhh, interesting. Any that are on the 360 store, not the S/X store, but are also BC?
There was for a time but there's not any more I think. Orange Box, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 were, and Prince of Persia 1 was at a point as well, but they've all been delisted in the past year.

I do wonder though, how exactly they'll be able to shut down the store servers and still fulfill the customers ability to re-download their games on 360. I think currently it will essentially mean that, once the store is offline, you wont be able to redownload the digital 360 games you own onto your 360.

I have for example, the backwards compatible Halo 1 digitally through the 360 and that was taken off the store, so I can't redownload it if I delete it or lose it off my HDD.
 

Kadve

Member
They should honestly make everything not currently available on other platforms free a week or so before. But that's just me as a consumer speaking.There was for a time but there's not any more I think. Orange Box, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 were, and Prince of Persia 1 was at a point as well, but they've all been delisted in the past year.I do wonder though, how exactly they'll be able to shut down the store servers and still fulfill the customers ability to re-download their games on 360. I think currently it will essentially mean that, once the store is offline, you wont be able to redownload the digital 360 games you own onto your 360.I have for example, the backwards compatible Halo 1 digitally through the 360 and that was taken off the store, so I can't redownload it if I delete it or lose it off my HDD.

There was for a time but there's not any more I think. Orange Box, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 were, and Prince of Persia 1 was at a point as well, but they've all been delisted in the past year.

I do wonder though, how exactly they'll be able to shut down the store servers and still fulfill the customers ability to re-download their games on 360. I think currently it will essentially mean that, once the store is offline, you wont be able to redownload the digital 360 games you own onto your 360.

I have for example, the backwards compatible Halo 1 digitally through the 360 and that was taken off the store, so I can't redownload it if I delete it or lose it off my HDD.

Are they required by law to still offer that as a service? feels like there should be one.
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
There was for a time but there's not any more I think. Orange Box, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 were, and Prince of Persia 1 was at a point as well, but they've all been delisted in the past year.

I do wonder though, how exactly they'll be able to shut down the store servers and still fulfill the customers ability to re-download their games on 360. I think currently it will essentially mean that, once the store is offline, you wont be able to redownload the digital 360 games you own onto your 360.

I have for example, the backwards compatible Halo 1 digitally through the 360 and that was taken off the store, so I can't redownload it if I delete it or lose it off my HDD.
Yeah, so this doesn't change anything for me then. I managed to snap Prince of Persia, Soul Cal 1 and 2, and a few other amazing games before they vanished. Missed Left 4 Dead and a couple others unfortunately.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Physical games are looking good. I have my 360 hooked up so I can play NCAA football.

But you’re in exactly the same situation. People can re-download digital purchases and play. Physical players won’t be able to buy DLC etc, same with digital.

Digital is the future

Everyone’s in the same boat.

I do wonder though, how exactly they'll be able to shut down the store servers and still fulfill the customers ability to re-download their games on 360. I think currently it will essentially mean that, once the store is offline, you wont be able to redownload the digital 360 games you own onto your 360.

I have for example, the backwards compatible Halo 1 digitally through the 360 and that was taken off the store, so I can't redownload it if I delete it or lose it off my HDD.

You can re-download. You just can’t buy anything again. Online multiplayer will continue to work.

What has not changed is our commitment to preserving your ability to play the content you have already purchased on your preferred device, which means we are committed to supporting Xbox 360 gameplay for the foreseeable future – and you will still be able to play and re-download previously purchased content and connect with friends.
 

Kilau

Member
whoa
I thought it was way better than that, with all the MS works/worked on BC talk. That's pretty much hardly different than Sony's situation where many games exist as remasters, so it wouldn't be 100% either, but either is killing an entire plattform for good.

Sony should just license that RCPS3 emulator, that delivers some 2/3 of all games, improve it with their official knowledge, move every game in an emulation shop and one up MS here.
A lot of the big games work but it’s silly how often people refer to Xbox as having full BC with og Xbox and 360. I still have my 360 connected to the main TV right next to my XSX.
 

fatmarco

Member
Yeah, so this doesn't change anything for me then. I managed to snap Prince of Persia, Soul Cal 1 and 2, and a few other amazing games before they vanished. Missed Left 4 Dead and a couple others unfortunately.
Yeah I missed out on Soul Calibur 1 and 2, and Enchanted Arms recently, so I've been biting the bullet and buying up the remainder of the "never on sale" / "likely to be delisted" back compat games hahah.
 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
This is bullshit, but expected I guess... Now Sony will follow suit with both the PS3 and PS Vita storefronts (they've already tried once 2 years ago)! I'm kinda pissed off by this news even though I don't have a 360 anymore.
 
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fatmarco

Member
You can re-download. You just can’t buy anything again. Online multiplayer will continue to work.
Based on my past and current experience with the 360 store, which is currently already sloppy and broken, we'll have to wait and see whether re-downloading will actually work, but fingers crossed they actually ensure it does.
 

Dr_Ifto

Member
As long as people can download their library, I guess its ok. They have the metrics and see much its costing to keep up and keep updating, vs how many use it.
 

Tsaki

Member
Sony should just license that RCPS3 emulator, that delivers some 2/3 of all games, improve it with their official knowledge, move every game in an emulation shop and one up MS here.
How many are working on the RCPS3 emulator anyway? You'd think Sony could just offer them double the salaries of wherever else they are working currently and have them as a 100% emulation team, working on PS1, PS2, PS3 games. They could also work on PS4 games and either fix them (like the AC games and those 5 other games that are not playable on PS5) or improve them. They could also work for future BC in a theoretical PS6 making sure everything available on PS5 transitions seamlessly.
 
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Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Idiotic move, why shut it down?

I have to admit, I don't really understand why they would.

But I assume there are various maintenance things that take place to ensure that this storefront (which is evidently not running in the same way as the X1/Series storefront). There's a good chance that there's constant updating of security protocols and rules about transactions and compliance that need to take place. I assume anything that takes payments is never something you can just abandon and let the cash keep rolling in. There's probably various things they have to keep in place to make sure that they are protecting the IP of products on sale too, they could open themselves up to various problems.

I also assume that if the store was selling games in any meaningful numbers they'd keep it alive.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Based on my past and current experience with the 360 store, which is currently already sloppy and broken, we'll have to wait and see whether re-downloading will actually work, but fingers crossed they actually ensure it does.

If the Wii U store works for redownloading, I’m not sure why anyone would expect the 360 store won’t.

Because a small company like MS can't afford it.

The servers will still work. You can play online. You can download everything you own. They’ll still pay for that.

All they’re terminating is the payments part of thing, probably from a support and security point of view.
 

YeulEmeralda

Linux User
How much money does it take to keep the store up? I have no idea but it seems like you can run it on a computer somewhere in the basement.


On Steam nothing ever gets removed by Valve. That's true backwards compatibility (although getting 15 year old games to play nice with modern hardware/software can be a challenge).
 

Bry0

Member
How much money does it take to keep the store up? I have no idea but it seems like you can run it on a computer somewhere in the basement.


On Steam nothing ever gets removed by Valve. That's true backwards compatibility (although getting 15 year old games to play nice with modern hardware/software can be a challenge).
Keeping the servers live for redownloads sure. Payment processing and support, and game licensing etc is not a “set it and forget it” process though
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I miss my copy of Marble Blast Ultra, but that was straight ripped to PC. My very first purchased XBLA game was Gauntlet. I download whatever runs on my XBO, so it’s not like I still used a 360.
 

cireza

Member
All BC games are available on the new store.

There are a few exceptions though, I hope they sort these out before closing.
 
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