The Xbox 360 Store Will Close July 2024, But You Can Keep Playing Your Favorite Games by Dave McCarthy, CVP Xbox Player Services, for Xbox Wire via VGC
On July 29, 2024, Xbox will stop supporting the ability to purchase new games, DLC, and other entertainment content from the Xbox 360 Store on the console and the Xbox 360 Marketplace (marketplace.xbox.com)
I just bought Castlevania: Mirror of Fate HD the other week so I could play it at 4K for Chapter Select. So many games will become inaccessible to new players. I wish Xbox would flip a sitch and just enable backward compatibility for all physical games, but that will never happen. Xbox stopped adding to the program two years ago.
For as much as Xbox touts accessibility of titles through xCloud, they are done making sure digital games from 360 are up for grabs. I get that maintaining these servers have a cost and add to security vulnerabilities–it’s why Sony wanted to nix the PS3 and Vita shops in 2021, but they reversed that decision. The Wii U and 3DS weren’t so lucky.
But this is Microsoft we are talking about. The company that still has elements of Windows 3.1 in Windows 11. That’s 30-year-old software.
Semi-related side note: Why the heck can’t owners of the physical version of Rare Replay download and use the new port of GoldenEye 007? Totally ridiculous. They use discs as keys for backward compatibility. Why can’t the same be done here?