It's been just over 10 years since the Xbox 360 debuted. Since then it has set the industry standard for online multiplayer, become one of the best-selling consoles of all-time, and put Microsoft's Xbox division on the map. Its influence has been far-reaching, but like everything in this world it couldn't last forever.
The era of the Xbox 360 has officially come to an end. Today, Microsoft has announced that it will discontinue manufacturing of the Xbox 360 effective immediately. For the next few months it will clear out its final inventory and reach a final moment of its availability on the market.
The announcement was made via a blog post by Phil Spencer, which released the major news with the following sentence:
Microsoft has made clear that it will continue hosting Xbox Live services as well as selling Xbox 360 games digitally through its store to support consumers who own the console and desire to keep using it.
With this, the final tally for Xbox 360's sales is 85 million. This figure makes it the fourth best-selling home console of all-time, only behind the PlayStation 2, PlayStation, and Wii.
During the past two years Microsoft has made a monumental effort to let the Xbox 360 spirit live on through backward compatibility on the Xbox One. This functionality allows consumers to access many of their Xbox 360 games, most notable of which are Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect, BioShock, Alan Wake, and Gears of War 3.
