For nearly the past 20 years Microsoft has managed the Xbox 360 Marketplace, home to digital exclusives, Games on Demand retail titles, and tons of DLC, trailers, themes, apps, and gamerpics. In recent years they’ve touted their efforts to keep this stuff online, even taking up publishing duties themselves or negotiating licenses between parties. But over the last few years we’ve seen more and more content drop off of the Xbox 360 Marketplace.
Even more recently was Microsoft’s announcement that dozens of titles and pieces of content would be delisted “starting on February 7th”, just a few months ago. That content has frustratingly been unavailable for some while others (myself included) were only able to make the purchases after days of repeatedly trying.
With more (but still not all) of that announced content finally disappearing from the marketplace we now have reports that several Xbox Originals disappeared or are proving just as hard to buy. Sure enough, in the weeks since r/XboxSeriesX posted about the disappearances the titles have returned with price tags and ‘Purchase’ buttons in tow. But just like the Xbox 360 content from February, errors are now popping up when trying to make the sale either saying that “your purchase cannot be completed” or “this item is no longer available”.
For anyone willing to give it a try, here are the titles mentioned so far, none of which I’ve been able to buy on the web or the console as of making this post.
- Armed and Dangerous
- Grabbed by the Ghoulies
- Indiana Jones and the Emperor‘s Tomb
- Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy
- Tom Clancy‘s Splinter Cell
- Tom Clancy‘s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
- Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
- Tom Clancy‘s Splinter Cell: Double Agent
- Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict
Long Story Short: If you’re interested in anything — Xbox Originals, Xbox Live Arcade,
Games on Demand, DLC, my god I forgot about Avatar gear — buy it ASAP
Although Microsoft retracted it the same day, I still can’t put that support page claiming “we will be closing the Marketplace over the next year” out of my mind. At the time they only corrected that the closure wouldn’t happen in the month of May, not that it wouldn’t still take place through 2024. Seeing the increasing flakiness of the marketplace only makes it harder for me to hope that things will ever improve and that’s why I’m suggesting shopping now rather than later.
Full disclosure: I’m not getting any affiliate kickback on your digital Xbox purchases to incentivize making this post. In fact, I’m out $20 myself today from checking on listings and winding up buying Blinx: The Time Sweeper and Zapper: One Wicked Cricket