Call it. Time of death: roughly 12:00 p.m., July 29th, 2024. Age: 18 years. He was surrounded by loved ones, lived a long, happy life. His friends will speak fondly of him, and hold the memories he brought them with the utmost respect and admiration. His estate sale has wrapped up, and hopefully his family and friends grabbed the possessions that meant the most to them. The Xbox 360 has, more or less, officially flatlined, and the world weeps.
I speak in theatrics, obviously for humorous effect, but the Xbox 360 is truly a beloved console, and as of July 29th, 2024, the digital storefront has ceased operations; giving the console somewhat limited functionality. You can still play digital games that you purchased before the store closed, and obviously you can still play disc-based games, but you can no longer purchase any digital titles on the console.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the era of the Xbox 360 was truly the only time that Microsoft dominated a generation. It had near total mindshare for the majority of its generation. To justly give Microsoft their laurels, you have to credit them with their innovation of Xbox Live and how it built the worldwide community of online console gamers that we have to this day and popularized ubiquitous elements of online play, like voice chat parties - where you could speak to your friends and finally not be subjected to the loud droning of a stranger's air conditioner, his parent's screaming at each other in the background or a blaring TV drowning out any sort of conversation or strategy that you and your friends might be attempting to formulate. Party chat directly led to services that we use daily in 2024, like Discord.
The Xbox 360 had an incredible library of games, many of which were phenomenal exclusives to the console. The Halo series rightfully received enormous heaps of praise during this generation, with Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, as well as a real-time strategy title in Halo Wars, the series served as the flagship franchise for the console and fueled countless hours of fun, competition and beautiful storytelling experienced by millions of gamers. The Gears of War franchise, a personal favorite of mine, was born on this console. It brought visceral, gritty, gory and pulpy action to the scene and told a deeply personal and haunting military, sci-fi story of mankind desperately trying to beat back the apocalypse brought on by a hyper-intelligent inhuman threat. There were delightfully fun series like Fable, Viva Piñata and Crackdown that I remember pouring so much time into. Even some iconic franchises that became multi-platform, got their start on the Xbox 360, such as: Mass Effect, BioShock and Blue Dragon. The Xbox 360 generation really proved that Microsoft could go toe-to-toe with rivals Nintendo and Sony, from a sheer game library aspect alone.
We've talked about why the Xbox 360 was revolutionary and important to the gaming landscape, but I'd like to take a minute to speak personally about what the console, and the generation as a whole meant to me.
A large part of my gaming history was tied to what my older brother was into. The first console we had that I recall was a Super Nintendo, with Super Mario World. I was always his Player 2 - literally the Luigi to his Mario, gladly in my big brother's shadow. He and I loved gaming together and he introduced me to many of my favorite series. Some of my earliest gaming-centric memories with him, involve him teaching me how to play Age of Empires on our old computer. I also remember playing Soulcalibur with him on a Dreamcast display at our local mall, and we both immediately fell in love with our long-time characters Kilik (for him) and Nightmare (for me). This experience led to my passion for the Soulcalibur franchise today, and Nightmare is still my main character. At some point, we found an original NES at a flea market and hunted down the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat-em-up titles and played those together all the time. The Nintendo 64 was another huge part of our childhood. We played Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time together. Eventually we made the switch to Sony for the PlayStation 2, a console that he and I both were intensely excited for. I managed to also get a GameCube, but the PlayStation 2 was largely the console that he and I played together. I remember at some point, we played a friend's Xbox and fell in love with the original Halo and Halo 2, but as far as I knew, we were going to stick with our trustworthy PlayStation 2. I was obsessed with series like Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank and Sly Cooper, and he and I had been very into Soulcalibur 2 as well, so I was more than content waiting for the next PlayStation console. My brother had other ideas.
The PlayStation 3 launched at an absurdly steep price of $500, with an even higher priced version at a staggering $600. This was a prohibitive price for many people, being twice the price of the PlayStation 2. And famously, the PlayStation 3 did not really have any incredible, must-play, exclusive games until the latter half of its life cycle. So, my brother who had recently started working, waited until the titanic, smash hit Halo 3 came out, and made the switch to Microsoft's ecosystem. I had made the decision to ride with Nintendo, jumping over to the ubiquitous Wii console. We sold our PlayStation 2 and GameCube (a decision I still regret) and fully embraced this new generation.
The Xbox 360 was the last console that I really got to experience with my brother before he got married and moved out of the house. He and I sank hundreds of hours into Halo 3. I was just awful at the game, but the countless days and nights of playing the game with him and his friends are memories that I wouldn't trade for the world. There's a six year age gap between him and myself, and playing Halo 3 with him was really the last time I remember deeply sharing an interest and a hobby with him. Once he got married and moved out, he didn't make the time to play much anymore and thus, my days of being his Player 2 had come to an abrupt end. He doesn't play any video games anymore, but our experiences of gaming together as kids, has led to a lifelong passion for myself.
I did eventually get rid of the ultimately ill-fated Wii console and make the switch to the Xbox 360 myself. I played some games at a friend's house and knew that I had to get it. In what felt like a rapid-fire succession of amazing online games, I remember playing Gears of War and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with friends after school for a couple of years and then my favorite shooter of all time dropped in 2009, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Words cannot express how much I loved this game when it first came out. My friends and I would log on immediately after school and our time gaming together was like a continuation of hanging out at school. We would talk about classes and girls and crack jokes, while simultaneously enjoying this phenomenal game. Then the absurdly good Halo: Reach came out toward the end of my high school years and we switched to that. It was truly a golden era for online shooters. Xbox Live became a must-have element. It was like social media before we really got into Facebook or Instagram. Those weekends and long, bleary-eyed late night gaming sessions with my high school friends had filled the void that was there from not being able to play with my brother anymore, and for that, the Xbox 360 will always live on in my heart as a console with immense sentimental value.
As we've looked back fondly at this transformative, incredible machine that revolutionized online console gaming, largely popularized the shooter genre and, on a personal note, gave me one last ride with my brother before I switched to largely playing with friends and he exited the gaming scene altogether, I can't help but feel a bit misty-eyed. Melancholy is an apt word to describe this era, for me. It's almost sad in a grander scheme, as Microsoft truly never recaptured the magic of the Xbox 360 era. The generation that followed was a disaster for the Xbox brand, and the current, confusingly titled Xbox Series generation has largely been a dud, and seems to be rapidly leaning toward the inevitability of Xbox canning the console as whole and leaning solely into PC gaming and making their titles available on other platforms, such as PlayStation.
Microsoft's current misfires and mishandling of the brand can never rob them of what the Xbox 360 meant. It was a hell of a ride, and a damn fine machine. As the metaphorical three red lights of the Red Ring of Death fade out, bringing a conclusive end to the ultimate life of the console, a lone light is lit - a vigil candle for the memories of what we had. Goodnight, sweet prince.
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