The Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) is officially halting the production of its long-running Microsoft-focused gaming magazine. The magazine nearly made it to 19 years in publication, before folding due to the slow end of magazines and COVID-19 slowdowns.

OXM started in November of 2001, during the launch of the original Xbox. Bath-based media company Future plc currently publishes over fifty magazines (print and digitally), with the Official Xbox Magazine being one of only several gaming-focused publications. Back in 2001, Future paid Microsoft to publish as the official magazine of their new console. From there, the magazine continued to cover Xbox consoles from the 360 to the One. It’s sad to see the magazine shut down so close to yet another Xbox release: the Series X.

In an official statement, OXM says “like many organizations right now, we find ourselves being forced into making difficult decisions.” The tough thing is that OXM, seemingly, did everything it could to avoid this outcome. Executives for the magazine, apparently took pay cuts to slow the hemorrhaging magazine. Staff layoffs also occurred over the past few years, with the final set of staff members being fired this week.

Future also claims the losses its magazine experienced mirrored a larger decline in video game retail. We’ve seen stores like GameStop suffer troubles, and it appears hardware and software declines had a bad impact on OXM’s sales figures as well. There’s no telling how much the recent losses the industry accrued are due to COVID-19 shutdowns also affected the magazine. If you read the OXM magazine, then you, like I, are probably fairly sad today at the news.

In a funny example of truly dating myself, I used to grab OXM from my local Borders Bookstore, another now-defunct business. There’s no sugarcoating the sad state many companies are in right now, and many also had concerns before the on-going pandemic. Hopefully, everyone comes out of this as positively as possible when all is said and done.

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