It hasn’t explained exactly why, but Microsoft has suddenly decided to delist a bunch of old games from the Xbox 360 store.
Digital preservation remains a hot topic within the games community, so it’s easy to see why Sony’s and Nintendo’s plans to shut down their respective digital storefronts were met with such backlash.
In an age where games can easily become lost to the ether, Xbox has earned brownie points for feverishly pushing backwards compatibility, forcing Sony and Nintendo to do the same. Phil Spencer even called for legalised emulation to ensure older games don’t die out.
However, it appears Microsoft has its limits, as it’s recently said that it will be delisting a bunch of old titles for the original Xbox and Xbox 360 from the Xbox 360 marketplace.
The list varies depending on your region but, for us in the UK, exactly 44 games will be removed in less than a week’s time, on Tuesday, February 7.
The good news is that most of them will either remain available for purchase on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S stores or have already been ported to or remastered for the Xbox One.
Plus, if you’ve purchased any of these games, you’ll still be able to redownload them in the future.
The bad news, though, is that some of them – 19 to be precise – have only ever been available through the Xbox 360 store. So, once they’re removed, they’re gone forever.
You can find the full list below, with the games that won’t be accessible through the Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S highlighted.
Every original Xbox and Xbox 360 game leaving the Xbox 360 Marketplace
- Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
- Assassin’s Creed 3
- Assassin’s Creed 4
- Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD
- Blood Of The Werewolf
- Blue Dragon
- Breakdown
- Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare
- Call Of Duty: Ghosts
- Castle Crashers
- Cloning Clyde
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Dark Souls
- Darksiders 2
- Daytona USA
- Defense Grid
- Eets: Chowdown
- Far Cry 2
- Final Fight: Double Impact
- Iron Brigade
- Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad
- Jet Set Radio
- Left 4 Dead
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Limbo
- Lost Odyssey
- Mass Effect 2
- Monopoly Deal
- Mutant Blobs Attack
- N+
- Outpost Kaloki X
- Peggle 2
- Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds
- Prince Of Persia
- R.U.S.E.
- Sega Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co.
- Skate 2
- South Park: The Stick Of Truth
- Spelunky
- Splinter Cell Conviction
- Star Wars: Battlefront (2004)
- Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2
- The Orange Box
- The Raven Episode 1
Microsoft has not issued any explanation as to why these specific games are being removed, as there seems no obvious connection between all of them.
Perhaps it’s simply a licensing issue and Microsoft doesn’t see the point of paying for their inclusion on a console that’s almost 20 years old.
However, the list seems like a random hodgepodge of titles with nothing really tying them together aside from the Xbox platform. As you can see, some of them are quite famous titles too – so it’s not just a bunch of obscure indie games.
If you intend on buying any of these games before they’re removed, be aware that a decent chunk of them aren’t backwards compatible with the Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S. So, you’ll only be able to play them on the Xbox 360.
