Microsoft · 2005–2016

Xbox360

Gears, Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey and the Achievements that turned gaming into a scoreboard. Every case photographed, every disc tested.

[n] Xbox 360 games in stockGreen cases, Platinum Hits and Kinect purple

Shop all Xbox 360 games Complete in case

Why it mattered

The year's head start that made Xbox a household name

Microsoft shipped the Xbox 360 in November 2005, a full year before the PlayStation 3, and spent that year building the things the generation would be remembered for: Xbox Live with Achievements and a friends list that actually worked, Gears of War, and a $170 million launch day for Halo 3. The hardware was less sure of itself. The three flashing red lights around the power button — the Red Ring of Death — cost Microsoft more than a billion dollars in extended warranties, and the console still went on to sell some 84 million units.

The library is broad rather than exotic: the multiplatform hits of the HD era, Microsoft's own studios, and a strange side-shelf of Japanese RPGs and Cave shooters that landed on the 360 because Sony's box was too expensive to develop for. Green DVD cases hold up well, but discs scratch easily — the 360 was notorious for gouging a ring into any disc when the console was moved — so check the disc surface first. Platinum Hits reprints wear their own banner, and manuals thin out after 2010. We photograph every case and disc.

How we grade and photograph

Fast facts

ReleasedNovember 22, 2005 (North America)
Launch price$299 Core (no hard drive) / $399 with 20 GB
MediaDual-layer DVD, ~7.9 GB — big games needed several
Units sold~84 million worldwide
Best sellerKinect Adventures, ~24 million — nearly all bundled
Did you know?The three flashing red lights around the power button became the console's most famous feature. In July 2007 Microsoft extended the warranty for that specific failure to three years and took a charge usually reported at just over a billion dollars — one of the most expensive hardware faults in consumer electronics history.
Did you know?The $299 Core model shipped without a hard drive, with a wired controller and no memory card, which meant it could not save a game out of the box. The $399 model with the 20 GB drive is the one most people bought, and it is why so many early 360 games assume a hard drive is present.
Did you know?The Xbox 360 played dual-layer DVDs, roughly 7.9 GB against 50 GB on a PS3 Blu-ray, so the biggest games came on several discs. Lost Odyssey ships on four, Blue Dragon and Final Fantasy XIII on three, and Grand Theft Auto V on an install disc plus a play disc. A complete copy needs all of them.
Did you know?In November 2006 Burger King sold three Xbox 360 games — Sneak King, PocketBike Racer and Big Bumpin' — for $3.99 each with a value meal. They also run on the original Xbox, and they sold in the millions; Sneak King, in which you play the King ambushing people with sandwiches, is the one everyone remembers.
Did you know?Platinum Hits was Microsoft's budget reprint line, carried over from the original Xbox: games that had sold well for roughly nine months came back at $19.99 with a new banner across the top of the case. A Platinum Hits copy is the same disc, sometimes a later pressing, and usually the cheapest complete copy of a game.
Did you know?The 360 left region-locking up to each publisher, and many games are region-free. Cave took advantage: the Japanese pressing of Mushihimesama Futari was deliberately region-free, and Deathsmiles and Akai Katana got North American releases, which is why the 360 is the console for arcade shooters — and why the Japanese imports fetch what they do.
Did you know?Kinect launched in November 2010 at $149.99 and sold eight million units in its first sixty days, which Guinness World Records certified as the fastest-selling consumer electronics device of the time. Kinect games wear a purple banner on the case, and Kinect Adventures came in the box, which is how a mini-game collection became the best-selling Xbox 360 game.
Did you know?Production ended in April 2016, more than ten years after launch, through three body shapes: the original, the 2010 S model with built-in Wi-Fi, and the 2013 E model styled after the Xbox One. Just Dance 2019 is usually cited as the last physical Xbox 360 release, arriving in 2018 — thirteen years after Perfect Dark Zero.

THE SHELVES XBOX 360 GAMES WORTH REMEMBERING

Hand-picked shelves, filled live from what is in stock right now. Best condition first — jump to a condition below.

Counts are listings in stock — the same game can appear more than once in different packaging.

The grails

Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Deathsmiles, Chromehounds, Ninja Gaiden II, Too Human, Dark Souls — the Xbox 360 games that never went multiplatform and never went cheap.

Gears of War

Gears of War, Gears 2, Gears 3, Judgment — Epic's chainsaw-bayonet trilogy, the game the 360 was built to show off, and the reason the cover system exists.

Master Chief's home turf

Halo 3, ODST, Reach, Halo 4, Halo Wars, the Anniversary remake — the series that sold the console, on the console that sold the series.

Health bars

Soulcalibur IV, Street Fighter IV, Tekken 6, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Dead or Alive 4, Raging Blast, WWE — the generation that brought the fighting game back, and put Yoda in Soulcalibur.

The 2K shelf

BioShock, Borderlands, Civilization Revolution, The Darkness, NBA 2K — the publisher that let Irrational and Gearbox be strange, and won the generation on Achievements alone.

Platinum Hits

The reprint banner: games that sold well enough to come back at $19.99, on the same disc, in a case that says so.

Ubisoft's annual

Assassin's Creed, II, Brotherhood, Revelations, III, Black Flag, Rogue — one a year, every year, until the 360 could not hold Ezio any more.

Xbox Live Arcade, on a disc

Limbo, Trials HD, Splosion Man, Minecraft, DuckTales Remastered, Angry Birds — the downloadable games that made it to a case, usually after the fact.

Capes and cowls

Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Iron Man, Spider-Man 3, X-Men Origins, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Injustice — the superhero shelf, DC and Marvel on speaking terms.

Based on the motion picture

Harry Potter, The Force Unleashed, Transformers, Star Trek, Kung Fu Panda, Toy Story 3 — Hollywood licenses from a decade when every summer movie got a disc.

Things in the dark

Resident Evil 5, Dead Space, Silent Hill Homecoming, Downpour, Dead Island, Condemned, F.E.A.R., Alan Wake — survival horror's HD generation, with the lights off.

Japan's RPGs, on the wrong console

Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Tales of Vesperia, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean, Eternal Sonata — Microsoft paid for a Japanese RPG library, and America got a year's exclusive on some of it.

Bullet hell, Xbox only

Deathsmiles, Akai Katana, DoDonPachi Resurrection, Mushihimesama Futari, Espgaluda II, Raiden IV — the Cave and Taito shooters that made the 360 the arcade cabinet of its generation.

Rare, after Nintendo

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, Viva Piñata, Kinect Sports — the studio Microsoft bought for $375 million, doing Xbox things.

It came with plastic

Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Kinect Adventures, Tony Hawk: Ride, Skylanders — games sold with a drum kit, a camera, a skateboard or a portal, now sold without them.

Iron sights

Modern Warfare, Black Ops, Battlefield, Ghost Recon, Metro: Last Light, Left 4 Dead — the shooters that sold the most 360s, and the ones that deserved to.

The 100-hour save file

GTA IV, GTA V, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, New Vegas, Red Dead, L.A. Noire, Just Cause — open worlds that ate a whole winter, and the one where your horse fell off a cliff.

BioWare

Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II — the studio that gave you a party of six and made you talk to all of them.

Scoreboards and finish lines

Forza Motorsport, Project Gotham, Blur, Skate, Madden, FIFA, NBA 2K, Tiger Woods, Brunswick Pro Bowling — the sports shelf, and the racing games that share its aisle.

Ampersand & Co.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Command & Conquer. Kane & Lynch. Sam & Max. Plants vs. Zombies did not qualify — wrong punctuation.

Dead, Deadly, Undead

Dead Space, Dead Island, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Red Dead, The Walking Dead, Deadpool, Deadly Premonition — the generation's favorite adjective, noun and verb.

Colon: The Game

Transformers: The Game. Star Trek: The Game. Iron Man 2: The Video Game. Avatar: The Game. In case there was any doubt about what was in the case.

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Xbox360

The year's head start that made Xbox a household name