Newsletter
Microsoft has officially closed the Xbox 360 store which means it’s no longer possible to buy games digitally for the console if you still own one.
Like with everything in this world, the passing of time has brought the digital store for Microsoft’s sophomore console to an end. This news likely doesn’t come as a shock to most. Nearly one year ago Microsoft confirmed that the store would be closing down in the future. It even gave a pretty firm date of July 2024 back when it made the announcement in August of 2023. Still, knowing about its eventual demise probably doesn’t make the removal any easier for fans.
The Xbox 360 helped usher in the popularity of digitally-purchased console games. So it’s a safe bet that there were many Xbox 360 owners who bought a decent portion of their games from the store. There’s a silver lining though for anyone who made those purchases in the past.
Games purchased on the Xbox 360 store are still accessible
While you can’t purchase new content from the Xbox 360 store, you can still access content you already paid for. Microsoft isn’t taking that away and says that games will be playable on the Xbox 360. You can also play those games on newer consoles including the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S through the backwards compatibility feature.
Additionally, playing your games on the Xbox 360 is possible even while offline. It’s possible to redownload previously purchased games as well. But the company states that to play games offline users will need to make sure the licenses for those games are transferred to the console they’re playing on. The company has a help guide on how to do that in its support post about the store closure.
The Xbox 360 Marketplace is gone as well
It isn’t just the on-console store that was shut down today. Microsoft confirms that the Xbox 360 Marketplace, the web browser store for purchased digital games, has also been shut down. But like the console store, any games you bought off the marketplace can still be accessed by redownloading them. Worth noting is that you can still buy new games for the Xbox 360. They just won’t actually be new, and they’ll need to be in physical format. And that means third-party game shops and other methods.