Microsoft Randomly Shuts Down Its Movie & TV Store On Xbox And PC – WGB

With absolutely no warning and zero gilding the lily, Microsoft has abruptly shut down the ability to buy movies and TV shows via its store on Xbox and PC.

People became aware of this as they visited the story, only to be greeted by error messages. Microsoft, meanwhile, had posted up a Q&A detailing the changes while they in the process of actually making them.

if you try and access the Movies & TV store on Xbox it just errors out after Microsoft’s sudden closure today https://t.co/RpCRmx7W9F pic.twitter.com/SbHMSeuOSH

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) July 18, 2025

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

“Microsoft has stopped selling new movie and TV content,” says the Q&A.

The good news – if it can be called that – is that you can still watch all of the shows and movies that you already bought.

“You can continue to enjoy your existing purchases using the Microsoft Movies & TV app on your Xbox or Windows device,” Xbox said, while hastily ripping down its own storefront.

Thus far, Xbox and Microsoft have not issued any official statement on why this decision was made, or why it was so sudden.

I’m going to assume that the most likely reason is that the storefront just wasn’t very successful. Netflix, Amazon, HBO Max (or whatever they are calling it these days) and a host of other subscriptions models are the dominant force, and I can’t imagine Microsoft’s movie and TV storefront was driving a lot of sales or rentals compared to its running costs.

Still, it’s peculiar for it to be shut down so abruptly. At the very least, companies normally announce these things in advance, if nothing else because people will often panic buy a bunch of stuff before it closes.

That said, I cannot remember the last time I used the store.

It could also be related to Microsoft’s latest spree of layoffs, which has resulted in thousands of people losing their jobs.