Having been on the market for more than a decade, Microsoft has now officially laid the Xbox 360 to rest, with an announcement that it will no longer manufacture the gaming console.
Launched in November 2005, the Xbox 360 has easily cemented itself among the legendary gaming consoles, thanks to the sheer amount sold over the past decade, which Microsoft says has seen 78bn hours pumped into it by gamers.
But, sadly, all things must come to an end, as the head of Xbox at Microsoft, Phil Spencer, has announced that it will now cease production of the console as it begins to focus solely on its latest device, the Xbox One.
Given the rate at which the technology that powers game design improves year-on-year, it’s would seem fair that Microsoft feels that nostalgia can’t get in the way of ending something once it has run its course, particularly when it has invested in making it possible to play Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One.
Xbox One still has backwards compatibility
While it might seem like a small matter, the need for backwards compatibility for the latest generation of consoles to play older games is still strongly felt by the gaming community and is something of a major grievance for owners of PS3 games, who might want to play games on the PS4 but can’t.
“Xbox 360 means a lot to everyone in Microsoft,” Spencer said. “And while we’ve had an amazing run, the realities of manufacturing a product over a decade old are starting to creep up on us. Which is why we have made the decision to stop manufacturing new Xbox 360 consoles.”
Microsoft said, however, that it will continue to sell the remaining stock it has, but this could vary wildly from country to country.
Xbox 360 image via Barone Firenze/Shutterstock
