A Guide to Trading in Your Xbox 360 for the Xbox One

With just months left until Microsoft officially launches the Xbox One, selling its predecessor (the Xbox 360) could be the easiest way for gaming enthusiasts to scrape up the $499 to purchase console of the console just in time.

For that reason we’ve gathered some of the most current pricing information and trade-in values for users looking to sell their Xbox 360 and accessories to purchase an Xbox One.

Games

GameStop

Users looking to get Xbox One versions of their favorite games need look no further than GameStop. The company will allow Xbox 360 users who have a free GameStop Power Up rewards card to trade in their Xbox 360 versions of titles, for version on the Xbox One for just $9.99. Effectively, the company will allow gamers to redeem their Xbox 360 titles for $50 up until December 5^th. Titles include Madden 25, FIFA 14, Battlefield 4, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag and Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Right now users can still look forward to getting decent trade-in value for the most played Xbox 360 games. The world’s most popular online title, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, is still valued at $25.20 with a GameStop Power Up Rewards card. That’s before users take advantage of any special deals being held by GameStop that particular week.

GameStop also offers users the option of halving their trade-in value in exchange for cash for their games, so for those who have placed a pre-order somewhere else besides GameStop, that could be a fairly decent deal.

Amazon

That same standard edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 can be sold to Amazon for $27.99, just two dollars more than what GameStop is offering users. On nearly every game we tested, Amazon offered slightly high trade-in values for most the titles we checked.

Best Buy

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 would only net users $15. It, plus other games we checked, confirmed that Best Buy actually offers significantly less value through its trade-in program for all games. That isn’t to say that users who have pre-ordered the Xbox One shouldn’t trade in their games towards their new console at Best Buy for convenience, but users should keep the lower value in mind.

On the other hand, Best Buy is offering a 100% trade-in bonus for top performing tiles on the Xbox 360. However, the company’s website didn’t offer a list of games that qualified for the bonus, so values in store may vary greatly.

Consoles & Accessories

When it comes to Xbox hardware trade-ins the situation gets pretty complicated. With all of the sources we checked, the amount of money users can get back on their Xbox 360 hardware depends on a number of factors, including hard-drive size and console model.

 

GameStop

GameStop makes the process a little cumbersome. Instead of allowing users to trade-in the entire Xbox 360, GameStop breaks up the console into individual parts. For example a white first or second generation Xbox 360 with a wireless controller will net a user $40 before any in-store promotions. Any hard drives that were attached to that system would garner another $5 for a 60GB hard drive.

Trading in a wireless controller to the outlet would net a user about $10 before any limited-time promotions. Users who have an Xbox 360S could expect as much as $80 in in-store credit before any limited time deals or promotions.

User should note that a Kinect Sensor would count as an accessory and would have to be traded in separately. It would net users another $20 on top of their other Xbox accessories.

Amazon

Just as with games, Amazon offers fairly middle of the road trade-in values for the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 Pro with a 20GB hard drive could be traded in to the retailer for $57.15 in Amazon credit, while a 4GB Xbox 360S and a Kinect sensor is valued as high as $120.

Wireless Xbox 360 controllers traded into Amazon are significantly lower than GameStop’s offers, just $12.60.

Best Buy

The same Xbox 360 4GB with Kinect Bundle the would net users $80 for the console itself and another $20 for the Kinect Motion Sensor, would get a user just $60 in trade in value from Best Buy, depending on its condition, making it far less appealing than any other retailer.

Craigslist

A quick check on Craigslist found that Xbox 360 uses can expect around $200 in cash for their console depending on configuration. That’s not exactly to say that all users can expect this, most of the deals there also included a small collection of games.

Individual game prices greatly varied depending on location and age of the game.

Ebay

The Xbox 360S 4GB with Kinect has sold on the online-auction house eBay for around $150 lately. Again, as with Craigslist, that price can vary widely depending on location and condition of the device itself.

Overall, these trade in values are all decent for users looking to offload their consoles. It should be noted that those users who’ve made a significant investment in their Xbox 360 with digital games and other items may want to hold off on selling their console. Unfortunately, the Xbox One will not be compatible with any Xbox 360 titles at all.

That being said, any Xbox LIVE Gold subscription time left on an Xbox 360 account will transfer over to the Xbox One when it becomes available this November.