For many in the fighting game community, the Xbox 360 served as the home of the genre as it moved into the online age, but that house is about to close its doors for good.
Microsoft is now hours away from shutting down the Xbox 360 Marketplace, which means a bunch of classic / fan-favorite fighting games will essentially disappear unless you grab them now.
It’s important to note that before we get started, backwards compatible games will still be available for purchase on the newer consoles, but that still leaves a bunch of titles that aren’t on the verge of becoming unavailable.
This includes the likes of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online Edition, Darkstalkers Resurrection, Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, Street Fighter X Tekken, and more that are heavily discounted in these final days, which we’ll talk more about in a minute.
Starting July 29, 2024, users will no longer be able to purchase new games or downloadable content from the Xbox 360 Marketplace, similar to the previous shutdown on the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS.
There’s no official cutoff time yet, so your safest bet is to shop before 11:59pm PT tonight, July 28th.
As such, titles that are not backwards compatible with Xbox One / Series X|S will become unavailable, including some very important titles for the FGC as mentioned above.
To ease the pain a little less, many of these games are heavily discounted by 75-90% off until the store drops, so there’s still a little time to grab them insanely cheap.
Now, while the store itself is shutting down, the 360’s servers will remain online for at least the foreseeable future.
This means that players will still be able to download and re-download all of their purchased content and play it online, unless specifically stated otherwise.
It’s crazy to think that the Xbox 360 store is almost 19 years old since it launched in 2005 with the console, but it’s equally crazy how many games will essentially be trapped on that system, and only for those who already own them.
After tomorrow, the only way to legally access Third Strike Online Edition or Darkstalkers Resurrection as a new player will be through the PlayStation 3 or through the PlayStation Plus streaming service on the newer consoles, as they are also not on PC in the larger you are a part
And that previous option will likely disappear at some point as well, when Sony decides to close up shop for the PS3 as the only one from its era still operating for the time being.
They can still technically be accessed through more modern means like Street Fighter 30th Anniversary and Capcom Fighting Collection, but these versions of say the 3S Online Edition were unique with different content and features compared to their arcade counterparts.
We’re witnessing the end of an era that was instrumental in building the fighting game community to where it is today, back in a time before netcode rollbacks were the norm and you could hear your opponent raging in voice chat on default.
Xbox has compiled a list of discounted 360 games that can still be picked up before the store closes, so we’ve rounded up the available fighting games below.
If something isn’t listed here, it means the title is either already backwards compatible, not for sale, or has already been removed from the store previously like Soul Calibur 2 HD and 5.
However, it looks like the old Xbox Marketplace website is already starting to crash, so you may have to try links a few times before they load if you’re trying to shop online.
• Darkstalkers Resurrection – $1.50
• Mortal Kombat Arcade Collection – $5
• Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online Edition – $1.50
• Street Fighter 2 HF – $1
• Street Fighter X Tekken – $2
• Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix – $1.50
• Yie Ar Kung-Fu – $2.50
