Portal 2 ends 9 years of Xbox 360 "Games with Gold" freebies
Portal 2 ends 9 years of Xbox 360 "Games with Gold" freebies
Expand / It's over ten years old, but Portal 2 is still a top-notch cooperative puzzle game.
Valve
Starting September 16, Portal 2 will be the last Xbox 360 game available for free to Xbox Live subscribers through the Games for Gold program.
Microsoft told subscribers in July that its monthly Games with Gold deals "will no longer include Xbox 360 titles" starting October 1 because "we have reached the limit of our ability to bring Xbox 360 games into the catalog". The Games with Gold program will, however, continue to offer free monthly Xbox One games, as it has since 2015.
Xbox 360 owners who have subscribed to Xbox Live Gold since the launch of Games with Gold in 2013 have had access to over 200 games through the program, provided they logged in to claim those games during their window. availability of half a month. That's not bad value for a subscription that has remained priced at $60 a year for this entire time, despite Microsoft's recent threats to raise the price.
Although Microsoft stopped producing Xbox 360 hardware in 2016, all but a handful of Games for Gold offerings in the system's library have been backward compatible on Xbox One (and, more recently, Xbox Series X /S). Games purchased with Gold titles can still be played and redownloaded even after a user has also canceled an Xbox Live Gold subscription.
Interestingly, the September Games with Gold deals also include Thrillville, an original Xbox title that was made compatible with more modern Xbox hardware in November 2021. only acts as the 19th original Xbox game offered through Games. with the Gold program, and this is the first since the addition of Conker: Live and Reloaded in July 2021.
In recent years, Microsoft has faced persistent rumors that it plans to phase out its Xbox Live Gold subscriptions in favor of the more expensive and more extensive Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. Microsoft shut down those rumors in August 2020, saying in a statement that Xbox Live "is an important part of gaming on Xbox today and will continue to be in the future." Last July, however, VentureBeat reporter Jeff Grubb said on the Giant Bomb podcast that "I just wanted to reiterate that Xbox Live Gold is still on a board somewhere saying 'it's going to go away at some point.' "
Last year, Microsoft finally removed the Xbox Live Gold membership requirement for users to play free titles online, which matches an exclusion Sony has had in place since 2014.
Expand / It's over ten years old, but Portal 2 is still a top-notch cooperative puzzle game.
Valve
Starting September 16, Portal 2 will be the last Xbox 360 game available for free to Xbox Live subscribers through the Games for Gold program.
Microsoft told subscribers in July that its monthly Games with Gold deals "will no longer include Xbox 360 titles" starting October 1 because "we have reached the limit of our ability to bring Xbox 360 games into the catalog". The Games with Gold program will, however, continue to offer free monthly Xbox One games, as it has since 2015.
Xbox 360 owners who have subscribed to Xbox Live Gold since the launch of Games with Gold in 2013 have had access to over 200 games through the program, provided they logged in to claim those games during their window. availability of half a month. That's not bad value for a subscription that has remained priced at $60 a year for this entire time, despite Microsoft's recent threats to raise the price.
Although Microsoft stopped producing Xbox 360 hardware in 2016, all but a handful of Games for Gold offerings in the system's library have been backward compatible on Xbox One (and, more recently, Xbox Series X /S). Games purchased with Gold titles can still be played and redownloaded even after a user has also canceled an Xbox Live Gold subscription.
Interestingly, the September Games with Gold deals also include Thrillville, an original Xbox title that was made compatible with more modern Xbox hardware in November 2021. only acts as the 19th original Xbox game offered through Games. with the Gold program, and this is the first since the addition of Conker: Live and Reloaded in July 2021.
In recent years, Microsoft has faced persistent rumors that it plans to phase out its Xbox Live Gold subscriptions in favor of the more expensive and more extensive Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. Microsoft shut down those rumors in August 2020, saying in a statement that Xbox Live "is an important part of gaming on Xbox today and will continue to be in the future." Last July, however, VentureBeat reporter Jeff Grubb said on the Giant Bomb podcast that "I just wanted to reiterate that Xbox Live Gold is still on a board somewhere saying 'it's going to go away at some point.' "
Last year, Microsoft finally removed the Xbox Live Gold membership requirement for users to play free titles online, which matches an exclusion Sony has had in place since 2014.
Expand / It's over ten years old, but Portal 2 is still a top-notch cooperative puzzle game.
Valve
Starting September 16, Portal 2 will be the last Xbox 360 game available for free to Xbox Live subscribers through the Games for Gold program.
