Xbox Announces Social Clubs Will Be Removed From Consoles In April 2026

Probably a mix of cost cutting (less server usage, moderation) and that it wasn't widely used. I'm normally one of the first to start ringing the EVERYTHING IS DOOOOOOMED bell but this one seems like a logical closure, even if it is a pity is makes the Xbox platform a little more silent.

Wow, this is bittersweet. For one thing, I haven’t used them in a long time. For another thing, they are how I made some of my first friends on Xbox, just a few months after I got my first Xbox console in 2021, a few of which I’m still really good friends with today, so it’s understandable yet unfortunate to see that the feature is going away. But hey, at least I still have the friends I (literally) made along the way!

Edit: I wonder what will happen to the clubs in Forza Horizon. Weren’t they directly connected to this Xbox social clubs feature? (Or did I just happen to join one similar to a club I was in and not even remember?)

Xbox Announces Consoles Will Be Removed From Xbox In …

I'm not surprised. I think the only platform that has managed to successfully implement something similar is Steam, where the high volume of users allows small communities to form around games.

Well ain't that a shame. I used to use join them for black ops zombies easter eggs.

Another nail in the coffin. Online gaming is about socializing and they're stifling that further.

Not using Discord after their BS some time ago. And from what I've seen their BS hasn't stopped.

Can we just bring back forums? This is getting tired.

I really liked these, so it's a shame they're getting rid of them.

These are still a thing? I thought they eliminated them years ago. Pretty sure I blocked and disabled them along with the Series X/S capture button, Friend Following, and all of that social media BS that was introduced back on the XB1. Honestly hard to tell because my Xbox Live Friends list has had zero people on it since I signed up in 2002.

I used it absolutely 0 times.

This is stupid! It was great to organise online sessions for niche old bc games! I also found most of my best lgbt friends through clubs! Xbox is such a source of frustration now… I should really stop to bother…

No freaking way, one of my FAVORITE things about playing on Xbox is the capture club I'm apart of, we share in game photography and there's about 10 thousand of us in there. This is such a bummer, clubs were a cool feature tbh.

I've used it a bit, but I understand it being more trouble than good.

Hopefully xbox is looking to support a new crossplatform voice chat service now that discord is hot garbage.

Microsoft is such a garbage company these days. To think, in the past, people used to actually queue around the block for things they made, lol. It seems unimaginable now.

I run a club and am a member of several clubs, but come April, all of that will be gone. But hey, at least we get to keep the publisher clubs that are essentially used to push ads. Yay!

@Elbow let me start by saying I never used this feature. But the reason it's underutilized is because it's been left to rot.

The easiest way for me to try to explain how I feel about this is, let me compare it to a feature I loved on Xbox 360 - avatars. I loved seeing them on my friends list and loved using them in various XBLA games. Then Microsoft left them to die, and updated them in the most off-putting way for Xbox one while simultaneously abandoning them. So when Xbox got rid of avatars last year, you could have the same reaction - this feature is dead, so the move they are making is logical. The problem is the reason the feature is dead is that they murdered it through neglect.

When MS makes it official that they are no longer making consoles at all, we will have the same reaction, hey it's logical. The rub is that MS's incompetence is the reason it's logical to put it down.

@Jenkinss I agree with you, I loved the 360 Avatars. I was so genuinely excited when they announced they were returning for the Xbone.... and then the end result, you already covered. Not just that they flopped, they didn't even support in any game usage (that I know of.) Just an absolute mess.

I just honestly don't think I ever heard of this feature-- or I guess I have, technically, since it's used for games to post updates/news, so I'm not surprised it was shuttered.

@Master_Cthulhu70 The Awesome Screenshot Club?

Honestly, I never really used this, and it seems it was barely used at all when you have things like Discord/mobile apps.

A logical move regardless of what the doomers might say. If it helps streamline the future oS for speed, then even better.

Wow, exactly what Xbox needed, more things being removed.

I don't use it, but I bet there are some games and communities utilise it heavily. It's the sort of thing that is mostly promotional for Xbox, and meant to generate a semblance of good will by promoting communities on the consoles. Getting rid of it achieves the opposite, and isn't worth the small financial incentive, IMO.
These companies will spend 100s of millions on bad marketing campaigns, or clearly unwanted products, then shoot themselves in the foot because someone high on the food chain has to appear to be doing something, to justify their existence.
I'd add that all this does is further decrease the incentive to stay within the Xbox, or Microsoft, ecosystem, but it's clear that that doesn't motivate them in the slightest. I can understand shipping out games to different consoles, but sending off your already existing customers isn't a great business model.

@darylb24 if they manage to improve speed, they'll just use the extra bandwidth to fit in more dynamic ads, or fancy up the store, it's not going to add anything measurable to the user experience. For that matter, does the discord app affect performance? Surely it would have to be similar, if the app is open.

One of the leftovers from when they wanted to make Xbox kinda like Facebook with the social aspects and posting.
It is quite pointless but still unfortunate for those people who use and like the feature

@RegnumSolipsi I've since been on since 2003 in which my only friends are my grown children and I hide my online activity from even them. Curious what your GS is? Mine just crossed 630,000

A resource that had its reason for existing in the past but no longer has any reason to exist today. It's just an unnecessary expense within the company. And here comes the doomsday crowd complaining about the end of a resource they probably never used or used very little. Any rational person understands that there's no longer any reason for such a thing to exist.

Discord sucks and convenient they tell people to go there once they start requiring everyone give them their name, address, bank details and a blood sample.

Same garbage as when Sony removed their community feature, no reason for it really beyond basic corporate greed, at this point they might as well just delete rhe whole dashboard and have it just be a windows 11 homescreen because for all Xbox's talk of community and all their pandering all they ever do is drive people to competitions, remove features and stop people being social on their platforms.

Won't affect me really because i haven't used my Xbox in months because why would i pay for online play when i get that for free on pc but wow what a company they clearly don't want anyone using their platform, console gaming is dead 😆

@Raisedown honestly for me the only thing consoles have left is the dashboard it's cozy and stuff like communities allowed well a sense of community in comparison to steam which feels more personal/lonely.

So yeah Xbox is just giving themselves another L , i remember when i got back into the Xbox ecosystem just a bit after game pass dropped and and they used to have mixer, the dashboard was perfect plus they had those cool major nelson weekly or monthly clips showing upcoming games/dlc/features but now nothing but McDonald's ads and silence on the dashboard what a shame.

@AccessibleDaydream - Forza works through their official Social Club so it won't be affected as the official game clubs will still exist. But it was a fair question!

@Brigurugi Oh damn. You've got me beat. I'm probably about 350,000. I pushed the first 250K and broke that wall pretty quickly, somewhere around 2012, but I stopped pursuing achievements for all but my favorite games and the last 100K happened more slowly and organically. It's been at all all time trickle the last few years since none of the main series I play to completion have been putting out any game.

So happy to have another Halo game this year since I ran out of achievements to unlock in that series after Infinite dropped.

All these resource cutting features to add back Snap mode... Right?
That alone allowed me to use it as a computer multitasking with the design efficiency of a console.
And they KILLED it. 😫

@themightyant - except do you really think eliminating the feature is going to make even a decimal point performance difference? No, online social interaction builds communities and that isn't XBox anymore, MS wants to change your perception of them away from "Team XBox" where you wear green t-shirts to the midnight release of Halo into MS Office where you start your Xbox spreadsheet at work and check up on it through your phone at home. It's a different mindset that they think will be profitable, except as CoPilot has proven it only works if people in a like-minded community like your product more. Forums show business after business are pushing CoPilot and their employees are pulling out their phones to use ChatGPT because that's what everyone they know uses - community support.

Just when you think Xbox can't find a new way to p1ss people off and make the Xbox experience worse.

Microsoft says.....here, hold my controller.

@JustinTimberlake "at this point they might as well just delete rhe whole dashboard and have it just be a windows 11"

And then on launch day of the new console, opens the dashboard to see.....

I m AK from Germany, the owner of the club: GAMING LOUNGE. Me my admins and members are really sad and dissapointed about the situation. NO WORDS😢😢😢

There are clubs for certain games (not the official clubs from game publishers and developers) that this sucks for b I haven't been active in them for a little while now but the GTA car club and car meet clubs usually have a good amount of activity. Clubs like GTA car meets bring more players together who end up becoming friends is something you would think Xbox would want to keep around. If I was active in them, especially as much as some people are, I wouldn't even bother with using discord once these clubs are no longer a thing. S

That sucks. While I never really used these features on Xbox, I was upset when PlayStation Communities went away because I was in quite a few screenshot/photo mode clubs. It sucked having them ripped away.

I own one of the biggest non official clubs on the Xbox. Mark my words that if you do this Xbox will fall. I only made an account on here to see if y’all would sign a petition.

KEEP CLUBS OR LOOSE IT ALL

Community means NOTHING to XBOX anymore. Smh.

If the feature was hidden within settings then I can understand why it's not used as much. It should have been on the front screen that you could search and sign up for said clubs.

I am disappointed as i suffer with anxiety depression and agoraphobia and was in a club that shared screenshots of creations in there games or just really nice shots and to me it was nice being part of the group as i find it hard connecting with people

@Hotrod74x2 I do too, and it can be really difficult day by day. There are still communities you can look around at; there's plenty of communities/groups on Reddit. /r/gamingphotography and /r/VirtualPhotographers/ are two that immediately come to mind.

I know they aren't used by a lot of people, but, the things they are good for they are GREAT for. Personally, I used the "GTA Car meets" group for years. About 700k members and it was always a good, moderated space to organize meets with less chance someone comes in just to blow it up or something.

LFG kinda makes you join blindly and unfortunately, I've encountered some pretty insufferable characters searching for groups outside of the community environment of clubs. Will be missed on my end.

I run a club on Xbox (ShareSpace), and my partner runs a club. Lots of friends I have made in my years and years as an Xbox gamer either run or at part of the social club community. Posting screenshots to see each others work and running competitions on a daily and weekly basis are huge part for 1000’s of members, and it is such a shame that “management” don’t listen to their customers anymore.
I’ve seen some social clubs have well over 100,000+ members so the “fact” that no one uses is them is wrong. As part of that “community” on Xbox, I’d just like to say it is a huge part of some of our lives and will be greatly missed. I’ve already spoken to a lot of users who are in the process of migrating to PS.

FYI, there is a petition live right now concerning the club closure. I’ll post the link and please, if you have time, visit and sign it. It probably won’t make any difference, but at least we’ll have tried to reverse a crazy money oriented decision by a company who talk about inclusivity and community all the time, but seem hell bent on destroying it.

Thanks all

http:/:www.change.org/xboxcommunityclubs

I believe all the recent changes are focused on the next generation of Xbox consoles. MS has continued to make various changes to the Xbox experience so when the next generation of Xbox consoles launch it will only have the features MS wants. I am disappointed that MS killed off buying movies and TV on the Xbox and Windows. My theory is that MS will launch two identical consoles with similar specs but different features. The base model will be a digital only Xbox console without any dual boot to steam and the Pro model with include the dual PC boot and have a Blu ray player which is can also read Xbox games. MS will likely made both consoles have the same hardware this time.