The Xbox 360 digital store is shutting down today

Today is your last chance to purchase anything from the Xbox 360 online storefront. As per Microsoft’s announcement nearly a year ago, the digital store for Microsoft’s 6th-generation console is going offline on the 29th of July 2024.

After today, players will no longer be able to buy new Xbox 360 games, DLC, and other entertainment content from the Xbox 360 Store. Notably, players WILL be able to re-download games they have purchased. This means that if there are any Xbox 360 games that are not backwards-compatible on subsequent consoles that you want to play, now’s the time to buy them. An additional wrinkle is that while purchased games and DLC can still be re-downloaded on Xbox 360 for the foreseeable future, the Microsoft Movies & TV app will no longer function at all after the 29th of July. As such, purchased films and TV episodes will be impossible to watch after this date.

With the Xbox 360 digital store shutting down and the Wii Shop Channel having gone off the air several years ago, the PS3’s online store remains the only 6th-generation console storefront still technically online. That said, Sony has steadily dialled back support in recent years for features like being able to directly add funds to your online wallet via the PS3’s storefront. With the PS3 having been replaced by multiple console generations by this point, it perhaps wouldn’t be too surprising if Sony were to announce that the PS3 storefront’s days are be numbered as well.

It is worth remembering the Xbox 360 online store’s role in popularising the rise in indie gaming in the 2000s, with famous indie darlings like Braid and Limbo having made their start as downloadable titles on the Xbox 360. Fortunately, certain backwards-compatible Xbox 360 games will continue to be available for purchase on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S’ online storefronts, ensuring that not too many games will be lost to time with the closure of the online store.