This all started because I wanted to play some Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. I don't know if this was because of the impending release of Street Fighter 6 or just a random urge that drifted up from my subconscious but I couldn't shake it and I decided that the easiest way to satisfy it would be to play the 360 port, which I bought when it was released way back in 2009. Of course the 360 store page was long taken down after the license expired and I had upgraded my 360 towards the end of its life because my original Elite model didn't have built in wifi (Remember that the Xbox 360 is so old it launched without Wifi OR HDMI? Are you even old enough to remember that?) so I didn't have it on the hard drive. That meant scrolling allllll the way back to the beginning of my ownership of the system (got mine in early 2008) to find it in my download history. And because the Xbox 360 has 512 megabytes of RAM and was not designed to be the digital system it became that meant I couldn't go too fast without crashing the list, so I had to scroll slowly, entry by entry.

The first big chunk of the list was mostly backwards compatible stuff I had bought relatively recently. I find it hard to resist $5 or cheaper 360 games on my Xbox One so there was a lot of random stuff I picked up just because, or got free from Games With Gold. I scrolled past random titles accrued cheap or free over the years (Look, I'm going to play Juju some day, I swear! You'll see! I'll show you all. I did play that 2010 Rocket Knight game for...reasons.) It was nice passing games that I had actually finished (Hey Binary Domain, good to see you, how you doing? Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, you were a lot of fun. Heck Need for Speed: The Run, you weren't good but it's nice to see you anyway. I heard they finally shut down your online. Tough break) and ones that I still definitely intend to play (One of these days Asura's Wrath, one of these days.)

I passed into the waning days of the Xbox 360 and the beginning of Xbox One, when the digital sales were flowing and I was still regularly playing the platform. Here I found a bunch of stuff that I bought and actually forgot about. I have Bangai-O HD? Man I've just been thinking I wish they'd put Bangai-O on modern platforms. I almost bought Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures for PS3 a few months ago but apparently I have a 360 copy? No memory of that. I hope it wasn't expensive. Maybe I'll try to play it this year, but given how packed the release schedule is getting it doesn't seem likely.

I scrolled past a whole lot of "content no longer available" entries. I'm actually not sure what these were though I don't think they were mostly games. Very few games have become un-downloadable on Xbox 360 so they're probably mostly random promotional materials and videos that got delisted. I don't think there were any games I remember buying that didn't show up, though obviously I wasn't carefully looking for everything and there's stuff I clearly bought but did not remember over the last 15 years. Still it was a reminder of just how much digital content has been delisted or removed over the years. Dozens of blank entries.

As I moved into my earlier days with the system the true wave of nostalgia hit. Oddly it wasn't really the games that did it so much as the ephemera. I love Afterburner Climax and wish it was available today, but what really got me was the random ephemera. I apparently downloaded the Drillbit Taylor theme and avatar pictures despite never seeing the movie, since I tended to grab everything free there was back then. Downloading stuff on a console felt so novel and exciting. So many demos and trials of arcade games. For my first year or so of owning the 360 I downloaded trials of almost every arcade game and lots of random demos. Anyone else remember Gel? I sure don't. Eets: Chowdown was interesting and I bought the full game there. I should finish that. It has only been 15 years, I'm sure I'll remember how to play!

There was something kind of magical about that time. It was also around the launch of Giant Bomb and that mid 360 era will always be tied to the podcast and site. So many games I learned about or tried because of this site. So many late 2000s pop culture references and weird avatars and themes. For some reason the 360 is a much more nostalgic system for the than the PS3, even though I still play both semi-regularly. Probably because I got the 360 2 years earlier and it was my intro to that generation. Maybe because at the time it was the default console, with the PS3 not really catching up until the end of the generation. Either way the PS3 download list is not nearly as emotional for me. It is wild that both stores and servers are still open all these years later, though. I don't think anyone saw that coming at the time.

As for Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, I found it towards the very end of the list. The download worked fine and the game holds up perfectly. They really need to find a way to do a collection of all those Capcom Marvel games. They were something special. If we could get the Cowabunga collection I don't see why that would be impossible. It would sell very well.

Of course MvC2 is not most closely associated with the Xbox 360 for me but instead with the arcade and especially the Dreamcast. I played so much of that game on DC. We're getting to the point of nested nostalgia, when I am nostalgic for my feelings of nostalgia downloading it on 360 and reliving those Dreamcast memories. Getting old is weird but I guess it beats the alternative.

I have a 360 in the basement that I periodically bring out and play on, and the nostalgia hits hard whenever I see that old interface. There was something special about this time when companies was just figuring out how to do digital games and their stores. In my head Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and 'Splosion Man are two games that encapsulate this time: a (slightly clunky) 3D action platformer made with Unreal Engine 3 and a quirky indie game that was my first foray into downloading games on my console.

I will also forever connect this site with that era of gaming and I have many memories of listening to the GB podcast while gaming on the 360.

@michaelenger: The 7th generation was the first "modern" generation and it really was kind of a special time. So many of the franchises that are the core pillars of gaming were either born or popularized there (Call of Duty wasn't really Call of Duty until CoD 4.) And the whole birth of downloadable console games was like a fast forward through several generations as we started with Geometry Wars and ended with stuff like Shadow Complex. 'Splosion Man was a big one because it was one of the first XBLA games that had real personality and focused on more than just gameplay. The Donut Song was one of the first viral moments from a downloadable game like that. Such a great game. Shame that Twisted Pixel ended up doing VR stuff you don't hear about because their first 4 games were great and weird (though the less said about Lococycle the better I guess; never played it but it seems to have been a huge miss.)

For me the relationship with Giant Bomb wasn't so much about playing while listening as hearing them talk about their favorite new games and running off to get them or download them. I would listen to them while walking around and find out about some new game that they were super hot on, and when I could download it that evening it was something special. There are specific games I still closely associate with particular guys who were super into them and turned me on to them.

(One of these days Asura's Wrath, one of these days.)

I should start a fund and pay people to play this game.

You should play Asura's Wrath.

And yeah, many good memories from that era. Cloning Clyde, all the Summer of Arcade games, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1

So many gems, with so much GB nostalgia tied in. I still have the wifi adapter. Just in case?

Personally, I'm just grateful that Microsoft has the entire 360 storefront up and running to this day. Spencer has even said they have no plans to take it down until it is technologically not possible, but there's some weird shit there that has no hope of ever getting the remaster treatment.