Microsoft has officially closed off the Xbox Live Marketplace in another round of streamlining and re-branding for the Xbox One, re-naming the service the Xbox Games Store, which has become effective immediately.
Visitors to http://marketplace.xbox.com will be greeted with the Xbox Games Store heading from now onwards and we expect Microsoft to change the web domain in the coming month to reflect the new name.
The re-branding has already been put in place on the Xbox 360 user interface where Microsoft has simplified and removed many of the older features that it has simply no need for going forward. The changes are all being put in place to bring the Xbox One and Microsoft’s older branding in line with the incoming Xbox One console that will be released sometime in November.
Microsoft has stated that the changes are to “make it easier for consumers to find content both on Xbox 360 today and Xbox One when it launches in November.”
The Xbox Live Marketplace launched at the same time as the Xbox 360 in November 2005 and in recnt years has incurred some major and minor changes. The most recent update to the Marketplace has seen the Zune branding removed from consoles and the simplification of Xbox’s services such as Xbox Music, Xbox Video and now Xbox Games Store.
That along with last week’s removal of the Microsoft Points currency system in favour for regional currencies (i.e. GBP in the UK, $ in the US etc.) Microsoft is making some little changes to simplify the Xbox LIVE and gaming setup going forward.