What you need to know
- Xbox services on Windows Phone are being retired in May.
- Features such as achievements and cloud-saves will no longer be accessible.
- Most games will still be playable, just without any online or Xbox profile components.
Microsoft has announced via notification in the Xbox app on Android and iOS that Xbox LIVE services on Windows Phone will be retired on May 16, 2022. The move comes over a year after official support for Windows Phone as a platform ended with a final security update that shipped in January 2020.
Starting on May 16, Xbox LIVE-enabled games will no longer record progress to your Xbox profile, meaning things like achievements or cloud-saves will no longer work. Many of the games will still be playable after the retirement date, but any online components will likely no longer function.
The announcement in the Xbox app says the following:
Starting May 16, 2022, Xbox features will no longer be supported on Windows Phone devices. As part of this change, earning achievements will be retired on Windows Phone devices. Some games may still be playable on your phone, but progress will not be recorded to your Xbox profile.
The retiring of Xbox services on Windows Phone will be sad news for a small group of "achievement hunters" who, over the years, have strived to collect and unlock as many achievements as possible. For the gamers who must 100% the achievements in every game they've played, they now only have a few months to complete the ones available on Windows Phone before unlocking those achievements becomes impossible.
Windows Phone as an OS was retired by Microsoft in January 2020 with the final security update for Windows 10 Mobile. After several years of trying to kickstart Windows on phones, Microsoft pulled the plug, and is now fully invested in building great apps and services for Android and iOS devices instead.
These days, you can play full Xbox titles on your smartphone via the Xbox Game Pass app, and there are several games built for iOS and Android with Xbox integration built right in. So, the legacy of Xbox on phones lives on, just without those classic Windows Phone Xbox games like Fruit Ninja or AlphaJax.
