Xbox boss Phil Spencer just announced that the Xbox One is getting backwards compatibility with 360 games later this year, which is pretty damn cool.
You’ll be able to access your digital collection of 360 games on Xbox One, as well as put discs in and download games you already own. The service will be available to everyone this holiday season, Microsoft says. Not all games will work with the service — Microsoft said around 100 will be available when it launches — but during the conference, they brought up Mass Effect as an example of an old 360 game you’ll be able to play on your current-gen console.
(You can see the first list of supported games — which is pretty much all first-party right now — right here.)
This is a huge move for Microsoft, especially compared to Sony’s lacklustre (and pricey) PlayStation Now service, as they pointed out with a great zinger: “We won’t charge you to play the games you already own.”
Comments
24 responses to “Xbox One Gets Backwards Compatibility; Microsoft Takes Shots At Sony”
Wow liking this very much
Awesome.
List is small right now – but as it did with compatibility for the old black box – we can expect it to grow.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/backward-compatibility/available-games
LOL!
I was about to say that this sounded good…
Word is we’ll get to about 100 games fairly quickly. But it’s always going to be a limited list.
Is it only going to be 360 exclusives?
This reminds me of Sony’s PS1 and PS2 classics that were brought over to PSN, in fact, it is exactly like that. Physical discs don’t run on the Xbone, they just act as tokens to download ported titles. It’s therefore not strictly backwards compatible – the Xbone will be running Xbone software, not 360 software.
Porting 21 games is not backwards compatibility. It’s making ports of old games available.
Actual backwards compatibility would be switching to some sort of 360 emulation mode so every game works.
*sigh*
Would you prefer a kick in the teeth?
Nah, think I’ll just keep using my 360 over either of those options.
I’ll take replaying Fable 2 using my XBOX One controller and the XBOX One UI over replaying it on my 360. Playing Mass Effect 3 this past week has really reminded me just how sweet resuming games is.
Yeah, title is misleading.
Your old 360 game discs just became unlockers to their digital counterparts, if they exist at all.
Actual backwards compatibility requires performance that the Xbone just doesn’t have, and will never have.
ultra high end computers today would struggle with the 360 emulator, the XB1 WILL NEVER emulate 360 by the wrapper method.
Every game didn’t work on x360 either. They had to adjust the emulator for each one. In time you’d barely find a game in hour collection which didn’t work. I suspect this will be the same.
expect this to get canned after 6 months like the xbox backwards compatibility list did on the xbox 360… and all i wantred was mortal kombat shaolin monks and kung fu chaos….
Both these games need to make a return! I have been dreaming of a new Kung Fu Chaos for years.
I hope Sony take note of this and let you insert your PS1/2/3 discs into your PS4 and then give you free access to the game via PSNow
Not that it will make a difference to Australia…
that PSNow service needs to die a horrible death… i just want them to walk out on stage with a PSNow server, place it on the floor, and then four guys walk on stage and beat the shit out of it with sledgehammers…
they completely screwed up by going for an insanely complex CPU design (cell processor) on the PS3 which in my opinion completely rules out any chance of backward compatibility of ps3 games on ps4 natively…
what i dont understand is why they wont natively support PS1 and PS2 games on the PS4…. even the Vita can do that….
Yeah, it’s really weird. The PS3 had the (undocumented) ability to play PS1 discs in addition to those bought on PSN. Originally the PS3 had hardware based PS2 compatibility and then moved to a pseudo-emulation for PS2 games re-built for the PS3 (which was more or less emulated anyway). With the PS4’s power, there’s no reason they can’t emulate the Emotion chip fully and run a lot more PS2 games. I guess it’s just then people would have no reason to pay even more money for PSNow.
As soon as I heard this, I dropped my coffee in excitement. I ran to my box of 360 games and dug to the bottom, pulling out the only game I’d care about. I bring it back to my computer and check the list.
It’s not there.
Red dead redemption. If they don’t port you, please god let the rumors be true that you’re being remastered.
So now developers of 3rd party games need to start approving the usage, hope they start soon.
I am guessing it is a legal reason the 100 games are first party titles, the third party developers could argue that it will lose them money if Microsoft just started putting all titles onto the backwards compatability.
Still blasted away by the Wii U which has perfect backwards compatibility for all disc games and most digital games.