Delisted Xbox 360 games briefly reappear on the Xbox Store — Microsoft prepares backward compatibility revival

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Several previously removed titles appeared and vanished within hours.

Xbox Controller
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Several delisted Xbox 360 games briefly reappeared on the Xbox Store this week before being pulled again, according to the Better xCloud datamining account, which monitors Microsoft's cloud gaming backend for changes. This follows Xbox Vice President Jason Ronald's commitment at GDC 2026 in March to revive the company's backward compatibility program as part of Xbox's 25th anniversary later this year.

The titles spotted include Aegis Wing, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Mars: War Logs, all of which had been removed from the store previously. The Prince of Persia title resurfaced with its original release date, along with an apparent placeholder price of $100, and the 2003 shooter Armed and Dangerous also reappeared and vanished shortly before the latest batch. Mars: War Logs was delisted around the same time.

One or two accidental relists might mean nothing, but the pattern across four titles in quick succession has understandably caught attention. The Better xCloud account, run by the developer behind the browser plugin of the same name, first flagged Armed and Dangerous as a possible mistake before noting that subsequent appearances looked intentional.

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At GDC 2026 in San Francisco, Ronald told attendees that the game preservation team would be "rolling out new ways to play some of the most iconic games from our past" as part of Xbox's 25th anniversary celebrations. Microsoft discontinued its backward compatibility program in 2021, citing licensing issues and technical limitations that prevented further titles from being added to the catalog.

The program originally launched in 2015 and brought hundreds of original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles to Xbox One and later Xbox Series X|S. At its peak, the catalog included over 600 titles spanning two console generations. Since the hiatus, fan demand for its return has remained high, with the community-run Xbox Game Preservation website tracking which Original Xbox titles players most want to see come back. Top-requested games on the site include Jet Set Radio Future, Sonic Heroes, and The Simpsons: Hit & Run.

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All this raises questions about how backward compatibility will work on Project Helix, Microsoft's next-generation console powered by a custom AMD SoC. Microsoft has confirmed that Helix will play both Xbox console and PC games, and Ronald described the machine as delivering an "order of magnitude" leap in ray tracing performance at the same GDC presentation.

Speculation has centered on the possibility that Microsoft's preservation team is working to bring Xbox 360 emulation to Windows PCs, which would keep older titles accessible on both Helix and standard Windows 11 machines, but Microsoft hasn’t confirmed that.

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Luke James
Luke James
Contributor

Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist.  Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory. 

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • TheEldritchVoid
    That would be such a goat W move from them to add 360 support to win10/win11 PC cause I've got a disk drive and a bunch of 360 games that would be amazing to revisit with better graphics and framerates, plus if they do it right and partner with steam we can have steam on Xbox and Xbox on PC as part of steam like how gog lets you manage all of your accounts and games from one launcher interface
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    TheEldritchVoid said:
    add 360 support to win10/win11 PC
    You can already play a good amount of 360 games on windows, needs a relatively new CPU.
    https://xenia-emulator.com/
    There is also a new trend of recompiling 360 games for windows making them native windows games. Search for sonic unleashed recompiled on youtube.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    TheEldritchVoid said:
    That would be such a goat W move from them to add 360 support to win10/win11 PC cause I've got a disk drive and a bunch of 360 games that would be amazing to revisit with better graphics and framerates, plus if they do it right and partner with steam we can have steam on Xbox and Xbox on PC as part of steam like how gog lets you manage all of your accounts and games from one launcher interface
    The Xbox launcher already allows you to launch all of your steam games through that. It’s only steam that’s a PITA by forcing you to add a glorified shortcut to external games individually.
    Reply