It’s been almost a year sincethe shutdown of the Xbox 360 marketplace was announcedand here you are, on the day it shuts down, frantically buying games you really should have bought before now as they’re about to be gone forever. In your defense,Xboxwaited until the very end of the 360 marketplace’s runto heavily discount some of the gameson its soon-to-be-defunct storefront. If you’ve come looking for a last-minute bargain or just remembered a hidden gem that’s about to disappear, it might not be too late.
Xbox hasn’t announced exactly when the 360 marketplace will shut down and at the time of publishing this,the storefront is still live. I’m looking at it right now, it’s games ordered by the ones selling the most as people have been using the store for the final time.Mirror’s Edgeis the top seller, Call Of Duty: World At War is number two, andGTA 5is right there alongside them. A reminder that the game so many of us are still playing today was originally released two console generations ago.
Xbox started cutting the prices of hundreds of 360 games in May,adding more to the sale with each passing month. The final wave of games was added earlier this month and among the heavily discounted games are the 360 version ofSkyrim, Batman: Arkham Asylum, andMetal Gear Solid 5. Also, to clarify, even after the marketplace shuts down, all of your Xbox 360 games will continue to function as normal, including any you buy today before the store is shut down forever.
Time’s Almost Up
You’ll even be able to keep playing your games online provided the servers for those games are still live. The only thing that’s going to change is you won’t be able to buy digital games through the console’s marketplace anymore. If you are reading this after the marketplace has shut down, kicking yourself for missing a game you’d forgotten about, the good news is you can still buy and play physical copies if you can find them. The bad news is the marketplace shutdown news has resulted in physical prices rising, and now shutdown day is here, that’s only going to get worse.
TheGamer selected 35 360 games at random andchecked how much their prices had risensince the marketplace shutdown was announced, and 30 of them had indeed gone up in price. Starting today, anyone who wants a 360 game will have to buy it physically which means the value of any 360 games you own is about to rise significantly.
