After over ten years of success, Microsoft has finally terminated production of their last-gen Xbox 360 console. The Xbox maker made the announcement today, with Xbox boss, Phil Spencer confirming the news himself.
“Xbox 360 means a lot to everyone at Microsoft”, Spencer began. “While we’ve had an amazing run, the realities of manufacturing a product over a decade old are starting to creep up on us”, he continued. Spencer did however assure that existing Xbox 360 consoles that have already been shipped to retailers will continue to be sold until supplies run out, with availability varying by region.
The Xbox 360, Microsoft’s second dedicated gaming console, first released in 2005, where its bulky original model unfortunately got off to a shaky start, thanks to widespread issues of overheating and hardware failures. While this first build of the console infamously set the record for the most defective electronics product in history, with a nearly 55% rate of returns by customers, the console eventually overcame its initial troubles with a well-received retail game lineup, a successful Xbox Live Arcade catalogue for smaller game projects with cheaper prices, and vastly improved second and third ‘Slim’ models that fixed the early hardware issues. Now, the console is considered a favourite among modern console gamers, particularly for its controller that is also a favourite among PC gamers, as well as Microsoft’s best-realized console to date, even in contrast to the current Xbox One.
While production on actual Xbox 360 consoles has ceased, Microsoft will still keep the Xbox 360’s online game marketplace active for now, and any Xbox 360 games with active online servers will have those servers remain active for the foreseeable future. Obviously, Xbox gamers will still be able to purchase backwards-compatible Xbox 360 games from their Xbox One consoles as well, particularly since some upcoming games are still in development for Xbox 360, plus all free Xbox 360 games that Xbox Live Gold members can redeem from the Games with Gold rewards program are mandated by Microsoft to be backwards-compatible on Xbox One now.
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