Xbox Wire announced today that nearly one million ancient, abandoned gamertags will be made available for active Xbox Live Gold members with at least one year on the service. This marks the second time abandoned gamertags have been set free since 2011.
These choice gamertags come from early adopters waaaay back in the day. “These Gamertags are from the original Xbox era, the same source of Gamertags we used in our 2011 release. These accounts never migrated to Xbox 360 and as a result they have been inactive for quite some time,” states the press release.
While Microsoft hasn’t released a list of the names, they’ve offered the following tantalizing description of great gamertags up for grabs:
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
Access to the new gamertags isn’t available from the Xbox 360, so you’ll have to use Xbox.com or the Xbox app on Windows 10 or Xbox One in order to change yours (detailed steps here). The first change is free but any later ones will cost you.
The gamertags will be released Wednesday, May 18, at 11 AM PST, so set your alarm and grab the gamertag of your dreams. The release will roll out over the next 24 hours, so the whole list of abandoned tags won’t be available at once. Let us know what cutting-edge pop culture reference or “Proper Names” you manage to grab once Wednesday rolls around.
