14 DAY TRIAL // The rumor that Xbox 360 servers are going to be shut down at the end of the year has been squashed by Microsoft.
Xbox 360 was launched all the way back in 2005, which means that it only recently celebrated its tenth birthday. This really puts the age of that console into perspective, but it's nice to notice that, even so, it is still getting games. The user base for Xbox 360 is pretty consistent, which means that Microsoft is not ready to pull the plug just yet. At least, that is the theory.
Microsoft now has a newer console on the market, the Xbox One, and it would very much want people to buy it. The problem is that many users still have the older one, and they don't want to. That can be solved by stopping the support for Xbox 360, with the hope that people will move onto Xbox One. The flaw in that logic is that those gamers might also choose PlayStation 4 to replace Xbox 360, or nothing at all.
As it stands right now, Microsoft is pursuing a very aggressive strategy to move people from older versions of Windows to Window 10, so it's clearly a company that needs to have people running the latest version of a product.
The future of Xbox 360 users seems to be safe for now because the head of the Xbox division, Phil Spencer, said on Twitter that it was not going to happen. He didn't give any extra information, just that the support wouldn't end in November, as the rumor was saying.
@0RIGINALENERGY Not true.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) January 16, 2016