Microsoft Recycling Old Abandoned Xbox Gamertags Beginning May 18

Written by Brandon Hofer on May 18, 2016

News: Beginning at 11am Pacific today Microsoft will be releasing one million old and abandoned gamertags that were previously not available.

Microsoft has revealed that beginning today at 11am Pacific they are going to be releasing nearly one million Gamertags to Xbox Live Gold members with active subscriptions and at least 1 year of cumulative Xbox Live Gold tenure. These Gamertags are set to be released over the course of one day to try and make sure Xbox fans in all times zones get an equal shot at these new names.

What does this mean exactly though? Well if your first choice for a Gamertag on Xbox Live was already taken when you signed up there is a possibility that it might become available at some point today. The Gamertags that are being released are accounts abandoned from the original Xbox era. These particular accounts did not migrate to the Xbox 360 when that console was released and have therefore been inactive for many years.

Unfortunately Microsoft can’t give us a list of all of the newly available names (because who wants to see a list of a million names?) but many of the newly available names come from the following categories:

Proper Names

Pop culture references (Entertainment, sports, gaming)

Types of Food

Geography and Travel

Science and Technology

Math and Numbers

Animals

Some of the greatest inventions of all time

If you want to try and acquire one of these newly released Gamertags the best and easiest way to do so is on Xbox.com. Xbox Live Gold members can also access these Gamertags within the Xbox App on Windows 10 and on the Xbox One console. If you only have an Xbox 360 you will need to use either Xbox.com or the Xbox App on Windows 10. You cannot use an Xbox 360 console for this due to the fact that these newly released Gamertags is not from an Xbox 360 console (although the newly released tags aren’t from an Xbox One console either, right?).

If you aren’t quite sure how long you have been an Xbox Live Gold member you can check by viewing your profile on your console or in the Xbox App on Windows 10. If you are wanting to change your Gamertag and you haven’t done it before then this first time will be free. If you want to change your Gamertag again in the future there will be a small fee so please keep that in mind. Do you plan on trying to acquire one of these newly released Gamertags? Tell us what you think below.

To change your Gamertag on the web, click here.

source: Major Nelson