Despite being 19 years old, the Xbox 360 doesn’t feel its age. You can still plug Microsoft’s longest-running console into a TV, be greeted with your abandoned Gamerscore, and reveal all the titles you’ve ever downloaded like a lost treasure from a buried treasure. But in just under three weeks, Microsoft plans to ditch your old Xbox 360 store unceremoniously in a shallow grave. When this happens, there will be no legal way to access these games unless you download them right now.
Microsoft has announced that it plans to shut down the Xbox 360 Store on July 29, so all those titles that aren’t available on another platform are completely dead. Oh, old games and DLC you bought before will still work. It just means that until the end of this month, you’ll never have a chance to buy new games again. This is worse news for game advocates, who last year showed that 90% of games from the last few decades are no longer commercially available.
There’s still time to download some of these games, but once the store closes, you won’t have another chance without any emulation. Last year, Chronicle of Video Games noted that 220 digital games are not backwards compatible with the Xbox One and do not have physical copies. These are mostly Xbox Arcade titles from Microsoft’s days encouraging independent developers on their main console. Some of them also received updated versions that were available on later consoles. There are just under 50 games available only through the 360 store that will disappear because no updated version has been released, as gathered by Deleted games blog (via HowtoGeek).
These download-only titles aren’t the kind of thing most nostalgic gamers would immediately recognize. Two Xbox Arcade South Park games, including co-op side-scroller Tenorman’s Revenge, will be gone from this deadly coil. Another small title with a big name, Burnout Crashwill go the way of the dodo in 20 days.
When Xbox wanted to promote its motion controls with the Xbox Kinect, it promoted several digital-only titles on its store. In many ways this peripheral was ahead of its time, but games will die anyway. there is Fruit Ninja Kinect and A haunt. Kinect Fun Labs and Kinect Sports Gems I’ll kick him too.
What games are hard to find anywhere but Xbox 360?
Microsoft ported numerous titles to the Xbox 360 Xbox Game Pass for those who want a reminder of what the late 2000s felt like. And yet so many more games haven’t made the leap anywhere else. Some hard-to-find games can still be played on Xbox One, but the end of the 360 Store limits their reach. Capcom retired the title in 2010 A dark void from Steam, and now you can only get it on disc or via Xbox. The remastered version of Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker it’s available on the Xbox 360 store for now, and is probably one of the few non-emulation ways to play the PSP classic.
Looking through the catalog reminds me of how geeky the Xbox 360 era was. You could get Call of Juarez Bound in Blood on PC, but it was one of those games centered around two Confederate deserters during the Civil War who returned home to their family home as it was looted by Union soldiers. You can play it on PC, but multiplayer hasn’t existed since 2016.
The game friend soldier from 2008 An army of two you’ve never left your Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. If you’re looking for a reminder, the game’s story begins with 9/11 and then suddenly you and a friend are killing people in Afghanistan as private military contractors. It really was a different time. This game is indeed on Game Pass, but the two sequels, The 40th day and The Devil’s Cartel, are available on disc only on Xbox 360 or PS3. The 2009 title Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athens suffers from a similar fate of being quite hard to find due to licensing issues.
Also, starting July 29th, Xbox 360 players will no longer have access to the Movies & TV app, meaning any content you purchased on your old console will no longer work. It’s another rousing gong to remind people that you don’t own anything you buy digitally. Nintendo closed your Wii U and 3DS eShop earlier this year with similar results as Microsoft.
