Microsoft Confirms that Xbox 360 Marketplace won’t be Closed in May

The gaming community went into a frenzy after 46 Xbox 360 games were delisted from the marketplace on February 7th. After Microsoft announced its delisting, a message on the Xbox Support page informed users that the Xbox 360 marketplace would be temporarily down starting from May 2023.

Microsoft has clarified that Xbox 360 will not be shutting down in May.

Microsoft stated that their message about the one-year closure was an error on their end. Xbox 360 will not be shutting down for a year, but the 46 games which were listed earlier will be removed.

After the Xbox Support page announcement, players were directed to purchase any games or DLCs before the games became unavailable. Clearly, anyone would be shocked by this sudden disclosure.

A mistake of this scale does seem unusual. This led to some fans contemplating whether the message contains a typo, maybe Microsoft meant to say May 2024 instead. However, upon seeing the intense backlash by the community, the company might have decided to completely scrape off the idea.

A similar stunt has been pulled off earlier. Nintendo announced that it will be shutting down the Wii U and 3DS eShops on March 27th, 2023. Players can no longer buy any titles available on those platforms after that date. Even Google closed down the Google Stadia cloud gaming service three years after launch in January.

All the 46 games which will be delisted from Xbox 360 on February 7th will be available on other platforms like Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. So, it is not like Microsoft is completely leaving its users out of options.

About Microsoft

Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975, Microsoft is an American MNC that creates, licenses, supports and sells computers, software, electronics, video games, and corresponding services.

Some of the most popular titles in the world, like Age of Empires, Forza, Gears of War, Halo, Minecraft, Microsoft Solitaire, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and State of Decay, have been developed and published by Microsoft.

Microsoft is also known for establishing the famous console brand Xbox, along with the video game subscription Xbox Game Pass.