A Bunch Of Great Xbox 360 Games Will Be Delisted Forever Next Year

I have a huge collection of 360 games on disc, many of them still sealed (I'm a terrible hoarder, and quite literally have a couple of hundred, if not many more, unopened and un-played games). The good thing is that I reckon I have around half of the games listed above.

One game from that list that I have played, and very much enjoyed is Remember Me. Great game. Highly recommended

Time to get that 360 emulation up to par.

Something really needs to be done about game preservation.

Thanks for this starter list for everyone!

South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! is another one. iirc it only shows up without the South Park name in the 360 storefront.

What a piss take. Exactly why digital is bad we have no control.

These Activision games need to be saved. I never finished Crash: Mind over Mutant and I never got a hold of Blur, Gun, Singularity etc. Close the deal ASAP after UK ruling and resurrect the BC Program.
ONE.
LAST.
TIME.
For old times' sake.

I have no titles of the top of my head but know that some BC games I already own (that can run on One|Series) I had to go buy on the 360 storefront, so I’m sure there are at least a handful (unless those got added more recently.)

Sad.

I don't have a 360 anymore, so this doesn't affect me; but maybe this will lead to a reboot of the BC program within Microsoft.

@UnusedBabyWipes Bringing back the backwards compatibility service would be amazing. I was so disappointed when they stopped bringing old games to the new generation.

A world without Sonic 06 isn’t a world worth living in.

It's been up for 18 years. That's a long ass time. This isn't like the WiiU/3ds or PS3 situation with little to no back compat attempt. I'm not gonna fault Microsoft for a 1 year notice of a 2generation ago virtual store closing.

I'm sure they'll all have remakes done of them eventually.

@Fiendish-Beaver You sound worse than me on the game collection front.
Remember Me was a solid game. I played it on PS3 though. Think it was a PS Plus title at some point.

@UnusedBabyWipes I do think it’s possible for a few Activision titles to become BC. I hope they can work something out. Especially with Crash, Spyro and Tony Hawks.

I think we, as a society, should accept that piracy is completely okay when the media we're emulating is not for sale anywhere.

I'm probably way worse, @Enigk... 😂

Just a reminder for the people that don't understand what delisting actually means: You will NOT lose access to the games, they will NOT be removed from your library, you will NOT be unable to redownload them.

If you purchased them already, they are yours and nothing will change. With advance warning, you have plenty of time to add any of the handful of affected games to your collection before they are removed from the store. If you don't purchase them, you can still obtain a physical copy to play the game. It only acts as a key to play the same digital version for games that are backwards compatible for Xbox One and Series S/X.

Also, for people saying piracy, Xbox 360 emulation is not up to snuff yet. Only mostly very basic games with 2D graphics are playable currently.

@Altaria_97 It would certainly earn Microsoft some good will to the userbase, which... is why I doubt they'll add any more. Maybe if Starfield underperforms and or the Activision purchase takes even longer they'll scramble to do it last 6 months, and only do it for Series consoles since one of their reasons was the original program had to support original & VCR XBOs. Gotta remember, the only reason they did backwards compatibility in the first place was because the XBO was a disaster.

/shrugs everything ends eventually.

@fraser I know one! CSGO I bought It out of curiosity when I bought a séries S, I had to enter the 360 Store only tô be able to buy it, so Fun tô experience this one in his initial state and even found some players online

@Fiendish-Beaver I love that game. I never finished it, I got stuck and started playing something else for some reason. I actually think about that game quite a bit and how I need to go back and finish it. It was years ago when I played it last so I should probably just start it over.

Gun was the first XBOX 360 game I owned. I really enjoyed it and this article kind of made me want to play it again, for nostalgic reasons. I remember I bought it super cheap and it was all I had to play for a while.

M$ will have an incentive to get as many Activision Blizzard games available on their digital stores.

So, the main reasons they'll be stuck in 360-land is either licensing issues or the cost to bring the game over > expected return on investment.

And in some ways, games that... now have one less party involved such as Tony Hawk or Marvel might be more feasable.

Definitely well worth playing, @ZYDIO. It is one of my favourites from the 360 era...

Out of curiosity, @FraserG, I bought a few small download only games on the 360. Games that are not available on disc. They do not show up in my Series library. Is it possible to add it to the current library and play them on the Series, or it it a case of only being able to access them via a 360? I cannot for the life of me remember the names of the titles unfortunately...

@kiwisoup 'Xbox 360 emulation is not up to snuff yet. Only very basic games with 2D graphics are playable currently'

That's way off the truth. There's an extremely successful Xbox 360 emulator out there that runs hundreds of 3D 360 titles just fine, including all the major ones in the Halo and Forza series.

Some of my favorite games are 360-only, which is the reason I still have my 360 hooked up. It's definitely sad to know that DLC and games without a physical release will never be available to future players.

I don't understand why companies don't take advantage of announcements like this with sales or other types of promotions. If you have a digital only release (or DLC) on the marketplace that's going to be delisted within a year, you'd be a fool not to mark it down and move as many copies as possible. Even if you marked it down by 90%, that's still going to make more money than it would otherwise.

@__jamiie I agree but Microsoft said you will be able to buy the games after they kill the old store and download them anytime because they will be on the newer store. The only thing going away will be the ability to buy games and dlc through the 360 store but everything that's backwards compatible is on the new store and if you own a game you can download it effectively forever...

@Shigurui It literally plays like 18 percent of the 360 library at a playable level and almost every game has some sort of emulation issue, but sure.

Yah to the digital future!

Rev up the piracy and emulators!!!

Can you buy these games now and keep them on the Series X or are they only playable on the 360?

I just found a brand new copy of this good old Phantasy Star Universe, before its price eventually skyrocket.
Been wanting to replay this one for a long time, now. And this article motivated me to not wait anymore.

@GamingFan4Lyf yeah I was hoping that would be the case too!

>Aliens: Colonial Marines

Oh no, what a tragedy.

Buy them games you want to keep as a physical edition. Digital versions of anything are fleeting at best and can be taken from you at anytime. Get in ebat , Amazon etc etc and buy your games physical and second hand. Control the game market to the best of YOUR ability. Do not let distribution companies control YOU.

@Fiendish-Beaver
To find those games will be a bit of work but here's the solution I think. If the xbox360 game is backwards compatible with xb1 or series X look up the official backwards compatible list for those consoles. There are 100s of titles listed on that document. I had the same issue but I found my elusive game ..."Ilo & Milo" a great puzzle platformer.

Or look up your console purchase history .

@Fiendish-Beaver Remember Me was hardly overlooked and is an awesome game. 👍🏼

Microsoft likes to make noise about preserving and backwards compatibility so why not commit to leaving their old storefronts up too?

Batman: Arkham Origins, the none rockstar Batman game which is pretty good but often gets forgotten is backward compatible but never for a digital release so you have to track down a physical copy.

@Scenes yeah, I still have my Steelbook copy with all DLCs.

Thank you, @Fortysixter. I do still have my Limited Edition Gears of War 360 console, but it's not set up right now. I think I'll have to link it up so that I can at least see what games I no longer have access to, and see whether I can transfer them in some way.

Thank you both for the replies... 😊👍

You're absolutely right, @Nintendo4Sonic, Remember Me was a great game (that I still have on disc). Not sure where the 'overlooked' bit came from, as I didn't say that, but if it gets people talking about it, I'm all for it... 😂

How on earth do Sonic the Hedgehog, Colonial Marines, Kane & Lynch and Watchmen make it on to a list of great Xbox 360 games? 🤔

Where has the push for game preservation gone? So many people quite rightly praised ther work to preserve the back catalogues on their machines, but this decision seems to fly in the face of that.
As always, the emulation scene will pick up the slack and trully preserve for all time.

Burnout 3 Takedown is a classic everyone should own. Can be found for less than £5

@PhileasFragg I doubt it's being widely used anymore. Companies don't usually do these things when there are millions of people still accessing it, it's normally when it's not really worthwhile keeping it running anymore.

@Titntin I am sure Microsoft did some research to see exactly how many purchases people have been making on the Xbox 360 Store and probably found that it's so microscopically low that Microsoft felt it was time to stop supporting the ability to purchase.

You can still download and play the content you already own on your 360 - so preservation still exists in that sense.

@GamingFan4Lyf Im sure they did exactly that mate, that would make perfect sense.
But I understand with the ending of the BC program and now this store closure that many old titles will be lost for good. This doesnt fit the narritive that MS are the only format holder dedicated to preserving old titles, which Ive heard several times.
Pirates are the only ones preserving the mediums history, and they have the advatage on not caring about licensed music tracks etc.
I never collect titles that are still comercially viable though, so my complete gaming archive currently stops at PS1. I guess at least when the store closes I can look at getting a complete 360 collection to preserve for the future!

@kiwisoup You are close to the truth there. Whilst an emu like xenia can play 1200+ titles, only about 250 play without significant issue as of last year.
However, software preservation is a long term endeavour. Ive been collecting over 25 years now, and many titles you couldnt play 10 years ago now play perfectly. We can only hope that this becomes the case for 360 titles too, and theres often a boost in volunteer coders and an increased focus on such emulators as official channels close.

I should see if there’s any game on Xbox 360 that I would want to play still

@kiwisoup 18% is still well over 300 playable games and over 100 of those have no emulation issues whatsoever. The point was you claim that only basic 2D games are playable not 3D ones which is factually wrong.

@Shigurui I don't get why you're getting so bent out of shape about it. Most games in the list IN THE ARTICLE will still not be playable via emulation. That's my point. I haven't personally tested every game and it was a while ago I tried playing anything on Xenia. People were just acting like every game is perfectly playable and that's nowhere near the case yet you are jumping on me and not them, lol ok. Pirate your games, I don't give a crap.

@kiwisoup I'm not getting bent out of anything. I'm simply correcting the 'only 2D games work' angle you're pushing.

As for games IN THE ARTICLE, it's a cherry pick of a much larger list, you may well be correct that those listed don't emulate well but to blanket statement they are 3D so won't work is wrong.

And fwiw I don't pirate anything, I only dump and emulate games I own. I live in a country that grants me non distribution copying and/or backup rights and ownership of all purchased digital media.

I May double dip on remember me in case my disc version goes kaput.

The games I need in the BC program are
-Black Knight Sword
-El shaddai: ascension of the metatron
-Lollipop chainsaw (the original, the more I hear about the remaster, the more i fear for it)

Don't forget Japan exclusive games! There are a bunch of shooters on the Japanese system that cost an arm and a leg physically but may still be available digitally.

One that comes to mind is Bullet Soul (the second one especially) which can go up to 400 USD even when buying in Japan. I think it's 10 bucks digital.

Japanese yen is really cheap now so it may be a good time to get in on those if interested. (Yen point cards that is).

@AlienigenX

By the way the "premium edition" physical of Lollipop came with a costume DLC code in Japan with every copy. (It's actually the regular edition here.) The codes still work so if you find an unused one, it's the only way to get those.

Not worth to go out of your way of course but interesting (to me at least lol).

@Markatron84

Haha, rose-tinted glasses?