Releasing old GT

As of August 30,2019, if a person does not use their Microsoft account for 2 years, it will be closed which should free up the gamertag as well. So it would still be a couple of years before it would be freed up by Microsoft. Otherwise, the person who
owns the tag would need to change it to something else in order to free it up. Since the tag system is in use on other Microsoft services as well, there's really no way to know for sure how active a person is.

They did a mass release of gamertags a few years back. Not sure if or when they'll do another.

The old account with that GT will still exist unless you pay to change the GT on the old account. Accounts cannot be closed or deleted.

Or if you don't log into that previous account for 5 years the GT can be released.

There is nothing you can do but wait. The gamertag will only be freed up if the original owner changes the tag to something else, or if they don't sign in for 5 years (starting in 2016) it will be released. Keep in mind that the tag system is in use on other
Microsoft services, so even if it's not in use on an Xbox, it may be in use somewhere else.

There were about 300+ people at my Game Stop at midnight, I was surprised. My Game Stop generally isn't that big for midnight release, I rarely stand in any type of real line at midnight, it's just in and out. Now, I should qualify that by saying I don't
play Modern Warfare, so I wasn't there to see how big that line was. The guy working at the Game Stop said this release was as big for them as MW3 which I thought was pretty cool. RPG's don't normally seem to cause the frenzy that FPS games cause, so seeing
such a demand for Skyrim was pretty cool.

I'll give credit to Game Stop, that line went very fast. I was there at 11:45, out by 12:20. When I was leaving, people were still getting in line so I have to imagine they did very well. Maybe this will inspire more developers to start putting as much time
and effort into RPG's as Bethesda does.