If you are a fan of Microsoft’s Xbox Fitness programme on the Xbox One, now might be a good time to start scouting around for a replacement, with the games firm planning to shut it in a year.
Xbox Fitness launched with the Xbox One console two and a half years ago, and has added some well known programme’s and trainers such as P90X, Insanity and Jillian Michaels’ Shred workouts. It paired with the console’s Kinect motion sensing peripheral to act as a personal trainer of sorts.
But Microsoft has announced it is planning to shut down the service over the next year, finally pulling the plug on June 30th 2017. As of Monday, you can no longer buy or download any of the content for the service, and once June 30th 2017 hits, anything you did pay for will be unavailable to download or play.
"Given the service relies on providing you with new and exciting content regularly, Microsoft has given much consideration to the reality updating the service regularly in order to sustain it," Microsoft's Erica Bell wrote in a blog post announcing the closure. "Therefore, the decision has been made to scale back our support for Xbox Fitness over the next year."
Programmes
Unsurprisingly, none of this is going down well with people who have s bought the programmes, with some investing more than €100 on workout programmes. Microsoft’s Xbox Fitness forum is seeing unhappy customers vent their frustrations at having their purchases rendered useless, as is Reddit and Twitter.
Some are calling for refunds for the content they will be denied access to, while others have pleaded with Microsoft to allow them to access the programmes offline.
In a response to angry customers, Microsoft said Xbox Fitness required online authentication to access the content, which would no longer be supported after June 2017.
Those who have Xbox Live Gold membership will be able to access free streaming workouts until December 15th, after which that perk will be removed.
“While our team is saddened by this news, we couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve accomplished in the past two and a half years,” the post said. “We know that many of you have used Xbox Fitness to begin your fitness journey, to supplement it, or as a way to redefine your own fitness story. We’re glad we could be a part of the journey.”
