Buy Xbox 360 Games Now Before the Store Closes

It’s the end of an era: Microsoft is officially planning to close the Xbox 360 Store and Xbox 360 Marketplace . While this is certainly sad news, it shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise: the Xbox Games Store launched alongside the console back in 2005 , the same year YouTube was born . It was a different world. Now that there are two generations of Xbox ahead of us, it’s time to close the 360 ​​digital store.

But don’t bemoan the Xbox 360 Store and Marketplace just yet – Microsoft won’t close those stores until July 29, 2024. That means you have almost a year from this announcement to buy as many digital games as you want for your Xbox 360. That’s a good number of notifications, and it’s a great run for these stores, which is only 19 years old.

Nintendo closed the 3DS and Wii U online stores earlier this year , and closed the Wii store back in 2019 . The PS3 and Vita stores are still up and running, but only because Sony is forcing you to use preloaded funds on the console itself . For the next 11 months, you can continue to buy games from the Xbox 360 Store and Marketplace as usual.

But July 29, 2024 is not the official retirement of the Xbox 360 or anything like that. Even when Microsoft closes the digital store, you’ll be able to download any and all past purchases – no scrambling to download everything you’ve ever bought from the service. In addition, online services will still work. As long as the game servers are still active, you can continue to play online with both friends and strangers. Game developers can even release updates to games if they become available.

Backward compatible content also continues to exist. Even if the game is for Xbox 360 or the original Xbox, you can purchase and download backward compatible content on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and xbox.com. Any available account balance or unused gift cards can be redeemed through your Microsoft account, microsoft.com, Xbox One, or Xbox Series X/S after July 24th. However, game codes will not work after this date, so use them until then.