What Happens To Your Games When The Xbox 360 Store Closes In 2024
While the console has not been the focus of Microsoft's gaming efforts for a long time, the Xbox 360's online ecosystem has still been quietly chugging along for two generations past its prime. The Xbox 360 is still the best-selling Microsoft game console to date, after all, so it's more than earned its fair share of post-retirement support. Sadly, nothing can last forever, and the Xbox 360's support is finally coming to a quiet end.
Microsoft announced on the Xbox Wire news blog that, in the summer of 2024, it will officially be closing down the Xbox 360's digital storefront. Starting on July 29, 2024, both the in-console Xbox 360 store, as well as the Xbox 360 Marketplace companion website, will become inaccessible. Users will no longer be able to purchase digital games or DLC content on the Xbox 360.
Additionally, the Xbox Movies & TV app will end operations as well, meaning that users won't be able to watch TV or movies on their Xbox 360 consoles. Until the store goes down, users can still make purchases as normal.
What happens to your purchased content?
Since the Xbox 360 has been around for so long, it's a given that its many owners have amassed a rather large collection of content: including games, DLC, and other entertainment. Microsoft has offered assurances that, while no new content can be purchased on the 360 Marketplace, anything users have already bought will still be usable.
For Xbox 360 games, any digital games that users purchase before the store goes offline will still be fully playable on a 360 console. Even if you delete the game's files, you'll still be able to redownload them at your leisure. Additionally, these games as well as backwards-compatible 360 titles, will still be readily available on newer Xbox consoles, including the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Online games will also still be playable so long as the individual games' publishers still have servers running.
As for movies and TV content purchased through the Xbox 360 Marketplace, while the content will no longer be available to view on a 360 console itself, all purchases are saved to your Microsoft account. If you have a device running Windows 10 or later, you can open the Microsoft Movies & TV app to find all of your purchased content there, still fully available to enjoy. This content can also be streamed to mobile devices compatible with Microsoft's Movies Anywhere app.