What the closure of Xbox 360 store means for players' purchases and online multiplayer titles

The Xbox 360 Store is closing down and this is what it’ll mean for the players’ purchases and online multiplayer titles.

Earlier this year, Xbox fans were warned that they would soon lose two services for good, which would mean that hundreds of games would no longer be available to buy on one particular platform.

From today, users of the Microsoft owned game console will no longer have access to the Xbox 360 Store and the Xbox 360 Marketplace.

The changes to Xbox will come into effect today (NurPhoto/Getty)

Fans of the store will no longer be able to buy things like games, trials or add-ons, apps, gamerpics or avatar items.

The news was broke in May but what does it actually mean for the customer affected by the change?

Well, it’s good news for anyone with an Xbox One or Xbox Series S/X as the digital stores for those consoles won’t be changed.

How will it affect existing purchases?

For anyone with a Xbox 360, you can breathe a sigh of relief because while the store will be closing down, players won’t lose any of their existing purchases.

And you won’t need to download them before Monday either, your purchases will still be there, you just won’t be able to buy anything new.

From today the Xbox 360 store will be closed forever (Westend61/Getty)

In a statement, Microsoft said: “This will not impact how the community plays currently owned games on Xbox 360 or via backward compatibility.

“Players will be able to continue to download and play games they already own on Xbox 360, Xbox One, or Xbox Series X|S consoles via backward compatibility.”

What does it mean for online multiplayer?

You might also be pleased to know that online multiplayer isn’t shutting down and users will still be able to use the function on games they’ve previously downloaded or games they’ve already bought on disc.

However, Microsoft warns users that “to play your games while offline, you must first make sure that the licenses are transferred to your console”.

Users will no longer be able to make purchases (Junko Kimura/Getty Images)

It’s important to remember that availability of the online services will depend on support supplied by individual publishers though, not Microsoft.

Taking to Reddit to share their opinions, one user wrote: “The 360 marketplace is so god awful, it always ran like s*** but today is even worse due to bigger traffic. I won't miss it lol.”

Another said: “Going like a madman to download everything I never got originally right now.”

A third wrote: “A multi-billion dollar company can't keep such a basic service alive? Pitiful.”

And a fourth added: “Goodnight sweet prince.”