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Microsoft has announced it will release close to a million unused Xbox live Gamertags to the public starting this Wednesday. These Microsoft Xbox Gamertags are old user names registered by Xbox Live members back from the original Xbox era that has been inactive since the service switched over to the Xbox 360, according to CNET.

"These Gamertags are from accounts abandoned 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," Larry Hyrb noted in a post on the Major Nelson blog.

The software giant will release the tags starting May 18 to only those customers who have an active subscription and a year's worth of Xbox Live Gold membership.

The Xbox live Gamertags will start to go live at 2PM Eastern Standard Time 11AM Pacific Time in the United States. It is to be noted that the tags will be released over a 24-hour period in order to give fans in every country a chance to get a better one.

"Starting on Wednesday, May 18th @2:00pm ET / 11:00AM PT, we will begin releasing nearly one million Gamertags to our valued Xbox Live Gold members with active subscriptions and at least 1 year of cumulative Xbox Live Gold tenure. These Gamertags will be released over a 24-hour period, to give our fans in various countries an equal chance to get one," the blog post added, reported Pocket Lint.

While, Microsoft hasn't specifically mentioned which Xbox live Gamertags will become available, it did note that many of them will be from categories including proper names, pop culture references, types of food, geography and travel, science and technology, math and numbers, animals and some of the greatest inventions of all time.

The Microsoft Xbox Gamertags will be available Wednesday on Xbox.com, the Xbox One, and through the Xbox app on Windows 10.