If you’re a former Xbox 360 owner who has upgrade to an Xbox One, or a fan older Xbox 360 title floating around, then Xbox One’s Backward Compatibility is probably your friend. Quite a few titles run on the Xbox One that weren’t originally designed for it. The implementation of Xbox One’s backward compatibility feature is sometimes a little problematically, however, Microsoft has pledged to keep them coming. We’ve been waiting for January’s list of new compatible titles, and it seems that the Xbox team is still hard at work fleshing out a list.
When asked the question directly, Xbox chief Phil Spencer had this to say on Twitter:
@HiddenStryder Have a couple more games doing the final run through on, wanted to wait until we had the full list, not too much longer.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) January 14, 2016
Not much detail there, but the words “not too much longer” are better than, say, “we have no idea, but it might be months.” So, that’s a positive.
If you’re not familiar with Backward Compatibility itself, then here’s a quick overview. The feature was added in November’s New Xbox One Experience update, and has been a fan-favorite addition ever since. In a post on the topic, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley posted the response she got when she asked about the emulation and how it works:
I asked Microsoft officials for more information about the emulator and was provided with this statement by a spokesperson:
“What we did was essentially built a virtual Xbox 360 console entirely in software. So when you launch a game via Xbox One Backward Compatibility, you’ll see that the game first starts up a virtual Xbox 360 console, then launches the title. The work is ongoing as each title requires individual packaging and validation work to enable that virtual console capability, but we’re committed to continually rolling out new titles each month.”
I’ve asked for more specifics about the emulator, but so far, officials aren’t providing information beyond that statement.
Whatever the magic might be, we’re just excited that everyone’s library of Xbox 360 games isn’t immediately made obsolete with the purchase of an Xbox One. We’ll keep our eyes open for the official list of upcoming titles, so stay tuned!
