As the old saying goes, “all good things must come to an end.” Xbox fans discovered that the Xbox 360 Marketplace is removing many games and DLC on February 7. Among the titles leaving the 360 Marketplace include The Witcher 2, The Orange Box, Jet Set Radio, Blue Dragon, Skate 2, Lost Odyssey, and Left 4 Dead 1 and 2. The associate add-ons for the titles removed from the Marketplace will also become unavailable after February 7.
Wario64 on Twitter shared a list of games that will be removed. If 360 owners have already purchased any games listed before February 7, they can always redownload the titles on their 360’s Download History. Any pre-purchased games will not be removed from players’ Download History.
Related: Halo 3, Reach fans mourn the shutdown of the games’ Xbox 360 servers
Games leaving a digital storefront for an outdated game system has become a trend in recent years, with another noticeable example being Nintendo shutting down the eShop on the 3DS in March. Though the 360 Marketplace will not be fully shut down, it feels as if that is an inevitability at this point. The Xbox 360 is almost 17 years old, launched back in 2006. Since 2006, the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S have been released, making the 360 outdated and no longer at the forefront of Microsoft’s business decisions. It costs Microsoft money to maintain the online Marketplace on the 360, and it is no longer viable to keep it running after so long.
The shutdown and removal of titles in digital stores are often a source of concern for console owners. Plenty of obscure games become lost once a store closes, making them very difficult to play. Fortunately, Xbox has a very robust backward compatibility feature. The Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One can play several game discs from older Xbox consoles, and players can even download digital copies of games from older consoles, meaning they can potentially redownload their titles from the 360 onto their Xbox Series X.
Published: Jan 31, 2023 02:27 pm