After over 10 years of production, Microsoft has finally announced that the Xbox 360 will be no more. The company made this new public on Wednesday, adding that the current stock will still be available for sale.
According to the Windows OS maker, the production of Xbox 360 will stop but this will not stop the company from offering their full support for current owners of this gaming console. In fact, the Redmond Company says that it will be offering full support for persons who will still be able to use Xbox Live as well as play Xbox 360 games. These persons will be able to receive this support via the official Xbox support site.
Xbox head Phil Spencer reckons that the Xbox 360 has been at the heart of the revolution the gaming industry has seen over the past decade. Spencer also thanked the fans of the gaming console who have also helped propel the product to the heights it has reached.
“I am very proud of the work and dedication that the team put into the development of Xbox 360 hardware, services and games for the past decade,” Spencer said. “And am [also] incredibly grateful to the fans for their endless passion and support,” he added.
In a little over a decade, Xbox 360 has been one of the top-performing gaming consoles in the market. This can be seen in the fact that the platform hosted up to 78 billion hours of gaming. Furthermore, Xbox apps, among them streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix, have seen a total of 25 billion hours spent on them.
Microsoft to shift focus to Xbox One
Now that there will be no more production of Xbox 360 gaming consoles, Microsoft will be shifting its attention to Xbox One, with the current over 4,000 game titles available for Xbox 360 users still accessible through the current-gen console, but via a backward compatibility program.
What is not known is whether Microsoft will come in with something like a replacement for the outgoing Xbox. However, with Sony rumored to be working on a new PlayStation 4.5, we might probably see the same happening with Microsoft as the company looks to further cement its position in the highly competitive gaming market.