A curious thing is happening on the Xbox One’s official storefront, as Xbox 360 backward compatible games that have long been delisted from the official Xbox One store are reappearing. And further, they’re available to purchase in ways that were never available prior. No justification for the changes has been provided by Xbox as of yet, but some believe this could be a change made in preparation for the upcoming launch of the Xbox Series X.
The discovery was first shared by Twitter user Bruno Costa and shared widely by Wario64. Costa first noted that many games, including Dirt 3 and Midnight Club: Los Angeles, were once again available to purchase digitally from the Xbox One store. Wario64 then trolled their followers by pointing out Silent Hill is returning to Xbox One, linking to the previously delisted Xbox 360 version of Silent Hill: Downpour.
In total, there were at least 24 different Xbox 360 games purchasable through the Xbox One store. Some are brand new to the storefront while others had been delisted for one reason or another and were returned to availability once more. It must be noted, however, that many of them have since been removed from availability once more.
Even though many games remain available on the storefront, that doesn’t necessarily mean these changes were intentional. Some of the newly available games have very high prices, which doesn’t make any sense. For example, Tom Clancy’s HAWX is $59.99 and Operation Flashpoint: Red River is $39.99. These listings don’t seem like they were intentionally released, making it seem like the entire thing is a big accident.
The reason why these games were suddenly made available on Xbox One isn’t clear. The most popular speculation seems to be that Microsoft is doing some sort of database update for its storefront. It could be related to backward compatibility, perhaps as Microsoft prepares for the Xbox Series X launch, but there’s no evidence of a relation to the Xbox Series X other than Microsoft’s promise that hundreds of backward compatible games will be available on the platform on launch day.
Hopefully, Xbox will provide comment on the matter in the near future. Perhaps there is an ongoing effort to reintroduce backward compatible Xbox 360 games onto the Xbox One. Perhaps it’s a step toward offering them on the Xbox Series X. Or perhaps this is just a database migration error gone awry. Either way, there’s a list of Xbox 360 games that some fans might be interested in picking up while they’re still available.
Axel & Pixel - No Longer Listed
Babel Rising - No Longer Listed
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat - No Longer Listed
Burnout Paradise - No Longer Listed
Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2013 - No Longer Listed
Cabela’s Hunting Expeditions - $29.99
Deadly Premonition - No Longer Listed
Dirt 3 - $24.99
Fuel - No Longer Listed
Greg Hastings Paintball 2 - $14.99
Grid 2 - No Longer Listed
Jurassic Park: The Game - $19.99
Le Tour de France 2009 - $4.99
Le Tour de France 2011 - Only Available in Europe
Mad Tracks - $9.99
Midnight Club: Los Angeles - No Longer Listed
Motocross Madness - $9.99
Operation Flashpoint: Red River - $39.99
Overlord - No Longer Listed
Pure - $14.99
Runner2 - $14.99
Tom Clancy’s HAWX - $59.99
Silent Hill: Downpour - $19.99
Syndicate - $19.99
Source: Reddit, Twitter
