Kyle Barr
The Xbox 360 Store is finally dead. Microsoft said this day would come, and yet the news has lodged in our throats and choked the sobs from reaching our lips. The mourners are already starting to line up, dropping flowers of nostalgia at the feet of the grave of what was Xbox’s landmark digital marketplace. It wasn’t just a shop for big-budget titles. It gave prominence to indie developers better than any console had before.
At around noon ET July 29, Xbox users started receiving an error message once they tried accessing games through the Xbox Live store. It reads: “This item is no longer available to purchase in this store. Content may still be available for purchase in the Microsoft Store on newer consoles, PC, or online at Xbox.com.”
It appears the Xbox 360 Store has officially shut down https://t.co/Hb3sd16Yi4 pic.twitter.com/AA1tByO4N4
— Wario64 (@Wario64) July 29, 2024
There were still some quality games to purchase in the shop before its departure from this mortal coil. Some of the more popular Xbox 360 games live on via Game Pass, but there are many games that are completely gone such as multiple small Arcade Kinect titles. This move is another blow to game preservation efforts. Researchers have noted that close to 90% of classic games are commercially unavailable.
Xbox 360 players can still access any games they downloaded before the store entered digital Elysium. If you happen to have your 360 lying about, boot it up for old-time’s sake and check out if your Gamerscore was as high as you remember.
The Xbox 360 shop shouldn’t be remembered as just another digital storefront. Xbox Live Arcade and Steam on PC were instrumental in creating a boom of indie developers trying to reach a mass audience. In the early 2010s, we were bombarded with indie games that are now classics, such as Limbo, Super Meat Boy, Fez, Bastion, Mark of the Ninja, Rock of Ages, and so much more. Of course, there was a deluge of quick turnaround titles that included dozens of Minecraft clones. Some of those easy bake oven games, like Castle Miner Z, became huge hits in their time.
There was a dark side to the prominence of Xbox Live Arcade. The Xbox 360 era, AKA the seventh console generation, brought about the advent of restrictive marketplaces. In order to be anywhere, you had to get your game on the few marketplaces available. Xbox Game Pass is the dominant name in game streaming. Microsoft boasted it had 34 million subscribers earlier this year. The next big name in streaming, Nvidia’s GeForce Now, last reported it had 20 million registered users as of August 2022. Stream still absolutely dominates PC game distribution not only in user numbers but in available titles.
But at the very least, Xbox 360’s storefront paved the way for a world where publishers didn’t necessarily have a total stranglehold on distribution.