Microsoft shutting down Xbox Fitness

Microsoft’s fitness training application for Xbox One, Xbox Fitness, is shutting down for good next year, the company announced today.

The company ended sales of all Xbox Fitness programs today, June 27. If you did purchase content through Xbox Fitness, you’ll only have about a year to keep using it; Xbox Fitness and its associated content won’t be available for use after June 30, 2017.

Here’s Microsoft’s explanation for the closure of Xbox Fitness:

"As a service, Xbox Fitness has continually evolved since it launched on Xbox One, with new content and ongoing updates," Microsoft Studios’ Erica Bell said. "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. Therefore, the decision has been made to scale back our support for Xbox Fitness over the next year..."

Xbox Live Gold subscribers will have access to Xbox Fitness’ Free With Gold content until Dec. 15, 2016.

Xbox Fitness launched in 2013 alongside Xbox One. The program let Xbox One owners work out to "personalized program recommendations based on your workout history and past performance." Xbox Fitness featured workout programs from celebrity trainers, including Jillian Michaels, Tracy Anderson, Shaun T (Insanity) and Tony Horton (P90X). Xbox One owners could use Kinect to monitor their performance and compare their workouts against others using Xbox Live leaderboards.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft about the status of refunds for content purchased for Xbox Fitness.