Gamers mourn Xbox 360 after digital store closure

Microsoft has officially closed access to the Xbox 360 Marketplace. Gamers are now mourning the loss of the iconic console storefront — and the “hundreds” of games which are no longer accessible due to the closure, as the Video Game History Foundation posted on X.

The Xbox 360 went on sale on November 22, 2005, ushering in a new generation of multiplayer gaming. The Xbox 360 Marketplace just missed its 20th anniversary; the PlayStation 3 storefront remains the last frontier of online services for this console generation, as Nintendo pulled its Wii Shop in 2019. (Sony Interactive Entertainment attempted to close its PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita stores, but reversed that decision after player protests.)

“Today, the Xbox 360 Marketplace is closing for good, removing hundreds of games and DLC from the marketplace with no legal way to access them,” the Video Game History Foundation wrote on X. “We’re working to fix copyright laws that preserve games, but for now we figured a pie couldn’t hurt.”

Microsoft held huge sales on Xbox 360 Marketplace games in the lead-up to the store’s closure — a last hurrah for buying digital Xbox 360 games. Microsoft added a ton of games to its backward compatibility service, making many games available to play on its newer consoles, the Xbox One and Xbox Series X. But there are plenty of digital-only games that are not compatible with newer consoles — and that creates a huge (legal) problem for access to those games. Games purchased before the storefronts closed are still accessible to people who own them (or, more accurately, who have licensed them).

Gamers keep coming together on social media and in forums to say goodbye to the storefront and the games that won’t survive the end. Larry Hryb, the former Xbox executive better known to the Xbox community as Major Nelson, posted a tribute to the console marketplace for X: “Almost 19 years later, all good things must come to an end. We’re in the final 24 hours (or so) of the Xbox 360 Marketplace,” he wrote. “It’s been a pleasure sharing all the thousands of Marketplace sales and updates I’ve done over the years. Thanks for having fun, playing fair, and submitting feedback.”

RIP, Xbox 360 Marketplace. It really happened.